Dangan Ronpa: Unser Sommerende/Chapter 5 - Class Trial

Continued from Chapter 5 - Deadly Life.

[1]

“Okay, trial number five!” Monoyaki was lying back in his seat, getting comfier than usual. “I’m pretty curious how this is gonna go for you guys. I mean, we all know how it’s gonna ‘go’, but I just wanna see how long you’re going to try for.”

“Nothing on Earth lasts long in the grand scheme of things, does it?” Dan asked.

“Dude, stop being such a debbie downer.”

“I’m actually quite indifferent...” Dan’s face scrunched a little.

“Wait...” Archie said, in a slowly growing volume. “I thought you’d expect us to be feeling just a teensy bit apprehensive about this? How are we supposed to be anything other than a... ‘Debbie downer’?...”

“Well, uh, basically...” Monoyaki straightened his posture. “I just don’t need to hear about it. It’ll drag me down too, and despair’s not so much my style, buddy. I just like plain carnage and drama and whatever, because, I dunno, it’s fun.”

I wasn’t having any of this tangential conversation, we needed to get this over with as soon as we could, and this definitely wasn’t setting a focused standard for the beginning of the trial. “Can you hurry up and do that rules explanation thing again?”

“Certainly! All you have to do is weigh up the evidence in order to convincingly pin down whodunnit... Huh, I thought someone was gonna interrupt me... Anyways, as you all know, once you figure them out, you just have to kick them off with a majority vote, and they’ll win their own execution! But if they deceive you, and you get the vote wrong, the rest of you are gonna die instead!”

“Hang on...” Mary raised a finger. “Now that you mention it, even if the case is meant to be unsolvable... Since there are only six of us, if we all voted randomly and happened to vote out the entrepreneur... It’d only be a one in six chance, but it’s possible. Would the killer still be executed in that scenario?”

“Hm, I don’t see why not. That’s probably not gonna happen though, and honestly, I don’t really have a plan for what’s gonna happen after that.”

“So that means we have a chance at survival, right?” I said, perking up.

“Well, not NECESSARILY, but... Ah well, we’ll see how it pans out! Good luck, uwehehehehe!..” Continuing to chuckle, he clicked his fingers and summoned the usual juice carton from the ceiling. “Anyway, yeah, get on with it.”

[2]

The trial commenced, and yet was quite silent at first. As I was the only one who had gotten a close look at the details of Lucy’s room, I figured that I’d have to be the first person to speak. There were a lot of places I could start at, though since I didn’t want to just unload all the evidence at once, I figured I should try and pinpoint the most important questions first, and the first of those to come to mind was the cause of death. Granted, there were a few things about that which I still wasn’t sure about...

“I want to verify first as to whether or not I’m the only person who examined the crime scene. One of you must have come back at some point, right?”

“Nah, doesn’t look like it.” Jo answered, on behalf of everyone. Judging by the expressions that the others shared, it seemed like I was the only person who had really been trying to solve the case.

“Alright.” I sighed, before taking a step forward, closer to the absent railing. “First thing’s first, I’d like to bring up the cause of Lucy’s death. There weren’t any visible wounds or even bruises on her body, so we can tell that her death was of a non-violent cause.”

“You could tell that, Attebury.” Mary shook her head. “You were the only one who examined the body, after all. The rest of us couldn’t make out Lucy’s condition, since she was facing away from us.”

“Bloody hell... I gave most of you a chance to observe, and it was turned down.”

“And when it got around to me, you said I didn’t have to because one person wouldn’t be enough!”

“I was referring to monitoring the scene after I already left! That would have needed two people to make sure neither person made any changes to the scene, remember?!””

“Well maybe you could have mentioned that?! And isn’t that pointless in the first place, since the case is literally meant to be impossible?!”

“Pointless enough to make both of you volatile?” Dan noted.

“Yes!” I shouted back.

“Carry on, then.”

“Wait, wait, hold on...” Mary stopped to catch her breath, before looking at Dan. “... Glass, when did you leave the crime scene again? You were there when we first arrived, but by the time Attebury turned to face us, you were already gone. I didn’t hear you leave.”

“Perhaps you should have paid closer attention. I left early, simply because there wasn’t anything worth witnessing. The killing game had already ended, hadn’t it?”

“Does everyone here really believe in Monoyaki so easily?” I thought aloud. “There’s no way we can know for sure if the case is actually impossible. Even if I don’t have anybody to verify the majority of my claims, there isn’t anybody to disprove them, either, and if I’m the only person who found anything out about the murder, then what good would it be to ignore everything I say?”

“And what good would it be to listen?” Archie said, sounding exhausted.

“... You just proved that you were listening by responding.”

“Okay. Okay...”

“Alright, if we’re accepting that...” Cody added, “Then what do you think the cause of death was?”

[3]

“Well, my theory is pretty simple...” I reached into my coat, and procured the vial with the little label. “This container was found sitting on Lucy’s table, empty and dry. I think you can make the label out, Cody, seeing as you’re basically standing next to me, right?”

He nodded, the tail of his cap flapping a little. “And?”

“Does the number look familiar to you?”

“Nope.”

“... You read the book, right?”

“You said I didn’t have to.”, he stated, looking miffed with a bead of sweat.

“W-well, I said you didn’t have to read the whole thing... I figured that you’d get bored and look at the bookmarked page?”

“And you didn’t just tell me to look at it?”

“I didn’t think you’d be bothered to do it if I asked, I mean, everyone’s looking and acting so defeated, and... L-look, I’m trying my best!”

Dan shook his head, hair swishing. “Isn’t this just a repeat of the exchange you had earlier?”

“Hey, don’t rope me into it.” Cody responded, “I’m not the one who expects people to read her mind.”

“I’m under a lot of stress over here...” I sighed, raising the vial up again. “The chapter I marked out had details about a chemical labelled ‘34’, detailed in the book to be arsenic. Reading the page, I learned that drinking enough arsenic can cause death.”

[4]

“That’s understandable, Attebury.” Mary closed her eyes for a second, her commending look shifting to an unsure one. “I’d think to do the same if I found what looked to be one of Rotkappen’s so-called potions. However, I’d like to know how you knew the location of such a book.”

“Oh, she’s had it out in front of me a couple of times before. The last time we saw each other...” I faltered, hearing myself say those words, knowing there’d never be another time... Nor was there any time to dwell on it. “... The last time we saw each other was when the motive was announced. She took the book out in front of me, and placed a bookmark in one of the pages, and I’m pretty sure it was the same page as the one it was sitting in when I found it again today. She then put it in the bottom drawer, and that’s where it was during the investigation. Honestly, I’m beginning to think she was trying to show me something.”

“Yeah, I get it...” Jo nodded, though he sounded a bit confused. “You’re gonna say that it could’ve been a suicide. It just sounds a bit weird, considering that I’m pretty sure she’d be more defensive of her life if anything, in her situation, at least.”

“I was considering that, yes. At the same time, I had to weigh up the possibility that she’d commit suicide to spare us all from a doomed trial and save us. But if she really had killed herself, there probably wouldn’t be an investigation called by Monoyaki. After all, there isn’t really an entrepreneur in a suicide case, is there?”

“Well, not really, BUUUUT...” Monoyaki giggled to himself, gloves on cheeks. “Since we’ve come this far, I’ll add in an option to vote for Lucy at the end of the trial! After all, you’d be in a pretty unfair situation if you couldn’t vote for her, eh? Ah well, it’s not meant to be fair, anyway.”

“So she probably did.” Archie said. “If Monoyaki’s willing to acknowledge the possibility, chances are, that’s the one we need to vote for.”

“Doubt it.” Cody returned, apathetic. “He doesn’t want us to find the killer at all this time, so it’d be stupid of him to just give us the answer.”

“Mm...” Monoyaki began to slouch into his chair like in the beginning of the trial, smiling away. “I won’t say which of you is right or wrong, you can’t shake the truth outta me.”

[5]

“Well, if that’s how you want to play, then...” I cleared my throat. “I can prove that she didn’t die of arsenic poisoning!”

“Uwehehe, so dramatic.”

“Shut up, this time, I can actually prove it with information everyone saw. See, the book’s notes on arsenic noted that a major symptom of lethal arsenic poisoning is rapid hair loss.  The problem with that, of course, is that Lucy’s hair looked as healthy and full as it had the night before!”

“Hm, that’s right.” Jo nodded once again, starting to look more at ease, more like himself. “And there wasn’t much hair on the floor, either, right?”

“That’s true,” Mary conceded, “although it’s also possible that the floor was cleaned afterwards by the entrepreneur.”

“Which is more evidence against it being a suicide.” I confidently said. “And that’s not all, either. There was a little bin in Lucy’s room, and when I looked inside it, there was a pile of shattered porcelain... And it just so happened that there was a teacup with the same style and colour, left to dry in the cafeteria kitchen. It hadn’t even been put back into its cupboard, so it had probably been washed recently.”

[6]

“A-ah. So...” Archie was starting to look more aware of his surroundings, following the conversation more directly. “... We can safely say that it wasn’t a suicide then. Good. We still have six people left to narrow down, though.”

“But you won’t.” Monoyaki said, in the midst of a groan as he adjusted his position, crossing his legs. “I just don’t want all of you to get too excited, y’know? It’s useless to try. I mean, keep trying, but don’t expect to get anywhere.”

“But if there’s no way to solve the case, why do you care if we try our best to figure it out?”

“See, if you cut through all the evidence at this rate, you’ll hit the inevitable impassable wall of there just not being enough evidence to find the killer, and in no time flat, too. I don’t want our special last trial to end so quickly, guys!”

“Thanks, I guess.” Cody said. “I’m starting to think that you’ve been exaggerating about how challenging the case is supposed to be. Anyway, the cup being brought up reminds me of something... I kinda wanna know how that teacup was smashed in the first place, you hear? It’s a little menacing. Just a smidgen.”

[7]

“I’m not sure about that one.” I said, looking downward. Even though I was the one who found the shattered cup in the first place, I hadn’t yet stopped to consider how the cup was broken. I could imagine Lucy dropping it in shock at something, or after being poisoned, except she hadn’t been poisoned, I mean, just the visual of drinking a poisoned cup and then dropping it, causing it to shatter, you know? That’s the sort of unrealistic thing you’d expect in some melodramatic drama piece, but anything was possible. Well, it wasn’t possible, since she wasn’t poisoned, but I was starting to tie my brain into knots, so I gave up trying to wrap my head around the concept.

“I’d say it’s too vague to figure out.” Mary said.

Archie shifted back a bit. “So, we’re just moving on?... Do we really not have any ideas?”

“The teacup could have been a weapon.” Dan stated. “It could have been hit on her head, and the blood wouldn’t be visible, since her hair is already red. It’s just a thought.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Mary responded, shutting him down with her signature glare. His expression seemed apathetic in return. Well, that specific idea sounded unlikely, but...

“Maybe he’s on to something.” I thought aloud. “Like, not the cup being a murder weapon, but it could have been smashed during a violent confrontation between Lucy and the killer. Either that, or there was poison in the tea, and she dropped the cup after drinking it... But if the former is the case, then... I suppose there’s another link to that concept.”

“Shoot, cheddar.” Jo said with a finger click. “That means ‘go ahead’.”

“... See, there was some noticeable damage on the wall of Lucy’s room when I was examining the crime scene. Just one hole, level to my eyes, a small cut on the blank wallpaper. Looking closely, I could see a few splinters coming out the side of the little pit. Then, later on, I took a closer look at that scythe Lucy asked Terry to create, about two weeks ago, and I could see splinters of the same colour lying on the tip of the scythe.”

“Uh, yeah, Norwegian spruce.” Archie softly noted.

“Alright, so there was probably a struggle.” Cody said, as he put his index finger to the side of his forehead, furrowed. “If that’s the case, the corpse should have been injured, right? Bruised, at least? Lucy must have been acting in self-defence at the time, slo I can’t think of how the murderer would kill her without leaving any marks on her.”

“It’s still probably poisoning, then.” Mary said. “If you think about it, it’s entirely possible that she was poisoned, and then realised it afterwards, proceeding to attack her assassin as an act of revenge, only to succumb to the poison before she could return the favour.”

“She wouldn’t do that, though!” I retorted. “At least... I don’t see why she would, or anybody, for that matter. If she knew she was going to die at that point, it would be pointless to kill her murderer, since she was basically dead herself at that point, right?”

“Well, I certainly would kill the entrepreneur if I was in her shoes. It would be dishonourable to simply let myself die, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think you’re an exception, though.”

Jo shrugged. “Well, she’s not the ONLY exception, I’d bet.” He sounded pretty serious, but came across as a bit smug anyway.

“Ugh... Lucy made it clear to me that she only wanted to minimise the death toll at that point. If the case really is impossible to solve, she wouldn’t kill the one person who was guaranteed to survive, even if one or two of us would be less hesitant...”

“Well, how would you explain her death then, Attebury?” Mary shook her head at me. “There needs to be a way for her to have been in a physical altercation AND die of poisoning, and I don’t see any other way that result would come about.”

“Perhaps it really was suicide?” Dan suggested. “She may have almost killed her attacker, and then, realising the futility and fragility of both the killer’s life and her own, decided to let the entrepreneur live, and poison herself.”

“Maybe it’s best if you stop talking.”

“But Lucy’s the only one who knows where her chemicals are kept.”

That’s when the commotion of the trial was suddenly stunned back into silence. Even I didn’t know where Lucy kept all of her ‘potions’, aside from the five or six ones she always had attached to her belts. Unless one of us knew more than they were letting on, there wasn’t any real way for the killer to use one of Lucy’s poisons against her, unless she left a poison out intentionally.

I sighed. “If a poison was used, it would have been Lucy intentionally giving it to someone. She could also have left out some poison intentionally, which was maybe what happened with the arsenic vial. Problem is, she would have been killed with a different poison, but there’s no sign of any other chemicals being used or available. I don’t see why the murderer would use one chemical, and then try to make it look like it was a different chemical, one that had clearly different symptoms.”

“It makes no sense...” Archie said, taking a step backward. “Nothing about this makes sense.”

[8]

“Uwehehe, that’s the point, numbskull.”, came a bleating from the throne. “See, THIS is what I meant when I was talking about the ‘wall of insufficient evidence’. The case is designed so that there’s some things about the entrepreneur which you can never find out at all. Even if none of you know where Lucy keeps her potions, it just so happens that I know pretty much everything that goes on in this school! The cameras caught it; the secret hidden tray of chemicals that Lucy attended to every now and then... I could say where it is, but what’s the point if you’re all gonna die anyway? I basically just gave the entrepreneur the poison they needed, and well, I won’t talk about just how it got into Lucy’s system, ‘cus then you would actually be able to figure out the case. This here’s basically the end of the Mutual Killing Venture, so, uh... Hope you had fun!” He giggled maniacally as he leaned back into his chair, beaming with accomplishment.

“O-okay.” Archie took another step back, hands pocketed.

“So that’s it, I guess.” Cody was just looking exasperated. “Do we get on with it now or something?”

“N-no, he’s just saying that!” I desperately yelled. “He just wants us to give up, can’t you see?!”

“Now why would I lie, huh?” The goat in question bent forward again, and huffed at me. “It’s that simple. The poison was given to the victim with special assistance, and you can’t figure out what the assistance was like. How long do you want to try for?”

“As long as it takes, alright? There could be something that we’re forgetting to talk about, or just a relation between two pieces of evidence that would make sense if we just find it! It’s that simple! There has to be a way, a-and I’m... We’re going to find it!”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Attebury... Please.” Mary said, with a hint of sorrow I never would have expected from her. “Don’t make this harder for yourself. All we can do is accept where we are now, as hard as it is to admit.”

[9]

I struggled to respond, and felt my hand twitch. How could I just go over everything a second time and expect to find something new? Nobody else was going to point anything out if I missed it, and if there really wasn’t anything to notice, if there really wasn’t a way to work around this challenge and unearth the truth...

We’d just die.

Everything up until now had been pointless.

Maybe I just should have killed someone and tried to escape myself.

... Would I really do that?

“Uwehe... Nobody’s talking. I guess that’s the signal for our conclusion! Of course, I’ll still give everyone the chance to vote, fair’s fair, but don’t expect anything to come of it. Is everyone ready?”

“... No...” Archie mumbled. His expression was slowly shifting, not necessarily less anxious, perhaps less resigned instead.

“Well, too bad, ‘cause-”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“No.”

“... Ahem. Too bad-”

[10]

“No!” He finally stepped forward again, coming to the edge of his podium. “This probably isn’t going to work at all, and you probably know what I’m about to do, and I’m probably wrong about it anyways, but... I frankly don’t care. I’ve known this for a while, but I guess I have to say it now.”

“Ugh, get on with it, dweeb.” Monoyaki tapped a finger on the side of his chair, unamused, only to have Archie’s finger directed at him.

“You’ve broken the rules of the killing game, and so you have to die.”

“C-come again?” The goat-boy slid back in his chair slightly, uncomfortably. Though he clearly didn’t want to show it, something inside him wasn’t eager to have this conversation.

Archie kept his finger up at him, as if it were a cross in the face of a vampire.

“Monoyaki, you’ve said something once or twice, and I believe you said that you had to follow the rules of the killing game, no?”

“N-no! I never said I HAD to do that...” Monoyaki flinched a little, and seeing that seemed to give me the courage to talk again.

“Hey, you’re emphasising ‘had’ quite a bit.”

“Well, that’s because!... Ugh, you two cause enough trouble as it is. Fine... Just say your accusations, weirdo.” He flicked the back of his hand at Archie, avoiding the boy’s gaze.

[11]

“Now, this is mostly based on a loophole, but...” He lowered the pointing finger, and ran it across his hair, trying to keep his nerves under control. “But it lies with rule number six, and rule number ten. As a reminder, rule six basically says that anybody who kills another student gets marked the entrepreneur, and likewise, rule ten says that the killer is executed if the rest of the class exposes them.”

“Yeah, yeah, and your point is?”

“Most of the time, the ‘killer’ and the ‘entrepreneur’ are interchangeable, as you’d expect. But there was one case where there was a special condition, where someone could be an entrepreneur without necessarily being a ‘killer’.”

“No, no way, you don’t mean?...”

“Exactly. ‘Crispy Crisperson’ was never a real person, and so, when Mia Fudge opened that bag, she was in a state of being the Entrepreneur without being the killer, and therefore, when you had her executed, you were violating one of your own rules.” Both Archie and Monoyaki were twitching a little at this point, with the former of the two giving a semi-confident smile. The latter one soon slowed down, and smiled.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Uwehehe, I see what you’re doing. Clever boy...”

“What he’s... Doing?...” I said, unable to stop myself from vocalising my thoughts.

“Guess he knows something we don't.” Jo proposed, seemingly being infected by that awkward smile Archie was giving.

“Then... What’s going on?...”

“Uwehehehehehe. Archibald... You and I both know that Mia’s still alive, huh?~”

[12]

Archie just nodded in response, as I tried to get ahold of what Monoyaki just said.

“N-no way, she’s not dead?!”

“Whoa.” Jo was still smiling, just with shocked eyes now.

“We saw her die!” Mary yelled, having none of it. “This is just some stupid lie, isn’t it?!”

“Nope, not at all.” Monoyaki shimmied closer to the edge of his seat. “See, Archibald’s right on the money. I recognised that Mia technically shouldn’t have been killed according to the rules, and so I designed a fake execution for her. You saw her ‘die’ of exhaustion and thirst, but that was just her losing consciousness. Afterwards, I swooped in and took her somewhere else, and gave her enough food and water to sustain herself. I might be openly bloodthirsty, but I’m not a cheater!”

Archie, still grinning, was pretty much beaming with confidence, though there was still a slight hesitancy to his voice, as if he couldn’t believe that whatever he was doing seemed to be working.

“And I think both of us know where you’ve been keeping her.”

“Yes, yes... That’s why you spent all that time outside the door to the water storage, eh? You heard her talking to herself or something, while you were watering the garden I bet. And to think that I was none the wiser this whole time!”

It was a bit hard to believe, but thinking of Archie still being in contact with Mia... It jogged my memory of that time he somehow made a power generator for that PC in the computer lab... Of course someone with no technical knowledge wouldn’t be able to craft something like that on his own... But he wasn’t on his own, was he?

“Now, there’s one more thing I need to ask.” Archie adjusted his collar, breathing deeply. “Monoyaki, take us up to the water storage now.”

“Wh-when did I say I had to do that?!” Monoyaki responded, losing his cool.

“Mia was never eliminated from the killing game. She should have been here this whole time, really, so if you’re not willing to remedy this lopsided application of the rulebook, then... I’m not saying you have to bring us up there, but it wouldn’t be very fair to Mia, would it?”

“SHE’S GOING TO DIE ANYWAY?!?!” The goat screamed, flapping his arms as he turned red. “I’m not a rule breaker! I’m a good boy, I’M A GOOD BOY!”

“Then can you prove it?”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“YES! This class trial is now officially ADJOURNED!” He grabbed his gavel, fumbled it, and slammed it on the armrest twice, before scampering off. I heard the elevator doors open behind me, beckoning us to exit the room, even if just for a bit.

The keys to the garden shed were left sitting in the lock. A simple turn unlocked the door, and opened the way in.

It wasn’t very large, it looked to be about as big as it was on the outside, so it mustn't have dug into the hallway on the other side of the wall. The floor was a colourless concrete, covered in dust and some hair. Along the back wall of the room, the longer side of the rectangular layout, were three metal tanks of water, and there was a hatch next to the last one.

And, in the corner opposite the hatch, I could see her hunched up in the corner, concealed by her hair, body, and mask. It was hard to make out with the low amount of light, but Mia was looking significantly more pale, and somewhat underweight. Opening the door further shone more light on her, prompting a groan.

[13]

“She’s been here this whole time?” I asked, staring in disbelief.

“Mm.” Archibald said, as he brushed past me, entering the room. The rest of the group slowly entered as well. “The door isn’t soundproof, so she’s been aware of everything going on in the garden for a while now. I was able to talk to her, even if she wasn’t supposed to talk back.”

“... Go away...” Mia said, yawning.

I just sort of felt more dumbfounded by her telling us to go away. I guessed that she was too tired to realise that we were trying to save her, or uh... Wait, is that why we came up here? We were too busy saving ourselves, right?

“Sheesh, talk about ungrateful.” Jo commented.

Archie sighed. “She’s been a little difficult lately, I guess.”

“Is she just bored?” asked Cody.

With a slight head shake, Mary said “I’d expect her to be a bit insane at this point.”

“Due to sensory deprivation?” Dan inquired. “If anything, that would give her a deeper understanding of life, simply by being cut off from-”

“Shut uuuuup...” The corner girl was squinting now, and glaring at us. “Is the trial over?...”

“We’re still trying to figure it out,” I admitted, “but try not to worry, we’ve got it under control. Right?”

I looked over to Archie as I finished talking, though his attention was mainly drawn to the tanks of water. He then turned to the adjacent hatch, and silently walked over to it, lifting it up.

“Hang on, uh, it might be dangerous?” I said, only to be ignored as he descended, engulfed in a deeper dimness. That’s not like him, I thought...

“Nah... It’s...” Mia mumbled, trying to sort herself out. “It’s just the piping area. There’s a light down there, and the switch isn’t hard to find... It’s not like there’s any sharp machine-things or whatever... Ugh...”

I nodded, hearing some of the others approach and open the hatch, presumably just to look. I was just paying attention to Mia, partially because I felt a bit bad for her. At least she wasn’t dead?

“Do you have a headache?”

“Nah... Am fine...”

“Err, good. Take it slowly.”

“... I’m not that tired.” She resumed her bothered tone from just before.

“Oh, okay okay, good, because I want you to tell me if there’s any reason Archie’s just going into that trapdoor without saying anything.”

“I guess he doesn’t need to... Say anything. Like... Someone came in here last night.”

“Who was it?!”

“Don’t get so excited, I think it was just some maintenance worker...” She yawned again, louder this time. “I don’t know why Monoyaki didn’t just do it himself... But yeah, that’s what happened. He told me to turn to the wall and cover my ears, I dunno why. Then the other person came in here and used some loud machinery in the piping area below us... Probably a buzzsaw or something... I think Archie could have just been watering the garden at night, and he heard all the noise.” She cringed a little, no doubt thinking of the unpleasant volume, and slowly stumbled upright as I turned back to the hatch.

Most of the others had now entered the hatch, in fact, the only ones aside from myself were Dan and Mia. Figuring I might as well get a look down there too, I climbed down the steel ladder and took a good look.

Down there, the light was buzzing and bothersome, and the ceiling was about 170 centimeters off the floor. I was able to stand up just fine, but my beret was a little squashed between the concrete and my head. The only other person down there who was short enough to stand without bending their head was Archibald, who was already at the other end of the room, inspecting sets of pipes. There were three sets of fifteen pipes, each corresponding to the three tanks above, so it would have been pretty crowded, if it weren’t for the fact that most of the pipes had been cut and sealed off. The first set from the hatch was entirely sealed, the middle one had all but one pipe sealed, and the last had all but one of its pipes intact, the one pipe that was sealed being in the same position relative to the others as the only intact pipe in the middle set. Archie was staring at the middle pipe in particular, the others were gathered closeby, aside from Cody, who seemed drawn to the first one that was completely sealed off. He was saying something to the group.

“... And so we should at least jot this down. This is the one thing Monoyaki didn’t want us to see.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, man.” Jo said, a little defeated. “If there are this many pipes, I doubt they’re all for water supply stuff. And look, that one’s completely contained, so...” He pointed back at the first tank, to which Archie shook his head.

“That’s the point. That must have been the original water supply, which was then changed to this third one, the normal one that we’re drinking from. So, the middle one has to be the poisoned tank.”

“Uh, poison?” I awkwardly asked, figuring I had missed the important details.

“One of the tanks is poisoned.” He said. “I can’t prove it, but that’s the most likely possibility. One pipe for each student’s room, and we have fourteen pipes of water here...” He pointed at the middle set again. “And one pipe there, with a tank of poison. The killer came here at night and rearranged the piping so that the poison only goes to Lucy’s tap, to kill her without even entering her room.”

“But the killer entered her room, remember?”

“I don’t know how to explain that. Something must have gone wrong with the killer’s plan. Maybe Lucy knew about the plan, and wasn’t drinking any of her tap water?”

“I guess that makes sense. She seemed to be withholding a lot of information in regards to what she knew about what Monoyaki’s trying to do right now.”

“Well what about the third set?” Jo inquired. “The one that doesn’t link to anything? Any explanations for that?”

“Maybe it’s just a spare water supply,” Archie said, “in case the first one breaks down.”

“It’s not water.” Cody bluntly said. Looking back at him, he was now up close to one of the sealed pipes of the first set. One of the pipes hadn’t been sealed all that well, and there was a small amount of water dripping off of it. Cody’s finger was wet, and he was sniffing it, probably just to double check. “... Well, it’s water, but it’s not just water. Water doesn’t smell, yeah?”

“Well what does it smell like, then?”

“It’s hard to pinpoint it, but the closest idea I’ve got is that odd-feeling smell in my drink a week ago. It’s happiness.”

[14]

An unwelcome discomfort shot through my body. What was that chemical doing in the water supply, of all places? The one that drives people mad, the one that Lucy seemed to react badly to since she first saw it... Or was that really the first time she saw it? But if there was happiness in the water storage, then at some point, somebody would have been planning to cause some serious chaos throughout the school, probably aiming to kill a lot of people.

And that’s when my thoughts led to something I was trying to forget about... The corpse piles in the rubbish dump underneath the school... I didn’t look closely at the bodies, of course, but most of them were probably around our age... Were they? It could have been a false memory, but if they weren’t the former students of the academy, then who would they be? The mastermind would have had to get rid of the other people in the school somehow, and what better way than to divide and conquer?

I felt a little sick.

I hesitantly looked at Archie to see if he was thinking the same thing. He was breathing a bit louder than usual, nothing too heavy, but clearly putting two and two together. The others, of course, didn’t know enough to come to that conclusion, but Mary and Jo seemed disturbed enough by the implication of the poisoning, even if they didn’t have confirmation that it went ahead. Cody just looked a bit metnally distant, probably from the reminders that the smell was bringing on. Archie then gave me a look, the sort of look that says ‘we should keep quiet about this unless it becomes important’, if just because it’d be weird for the others to find out that we had been keeping quiet about it for so long already.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Hey, uh.” A voice squeaked from the hatch, a curtain of black hair hanging from it. “The goat guy said that we’re supposed to go down to the trial room now, uh... Including me. I assumed you guys were finished with the trial?”

“We should be done soon.” Mary stated. “It’s mostly been figured out.”

“I-it really hasn’t.” Archie said.

“Well, I’ve mostly figured it out.” She sighed, before walking to the ladder and exiting.

The lift went downwards as smoothly as ever, and I guess we were going smoothly, too. Smoother than expected, maybe? But it could go wrong at any time. I guess it was better to focus on the here and now, though. I slowed down my breathing a bit.

Yeah, I could handle this.

[15]

And so, once again, we took our places. The crossed out portrait of Mia had been removed, hastily stashed behind Monoyaki’s throne.

“Okay! Now, to explain the rules of the class trial-”

“Shut up.” Mary sharply said.

“Wow. Just wow. You really are entitled, huh?”

“You already explained it though.” I complained, confused as to why he even felt the need.

“Good things come to those who wait!”

Mary groaned. “We should just continue without him.”

“Oh noooooo...” Monoyaki said quietly, sliding into the back of his chair.

[16]

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, since that’s out of the way... We should try to consolidate the new info we’ve got. So, how sure are we about the water-poisoning theory?”

“I don’t really see an alternative.” Archie stated. “It would explain why Lucy had no symptoms of Arsenic poisoning, while still also being an actual poisoning, judging by the lack of wounds or bruises. I don’t think the fact that there’s fifteen pipes for each tank is a coincidence, either.”

“There’s more than fifteen sinks in the school.” Jo said. “What I was trying to get at before is, the water system was here before this whole killing game thing. There were WAY more than fifteen students at a time here, probably fifteen for each year, which I’m pretty sure comes out to forty-five, plus the actual staff and teachers.”

“It’s a good point.” Mary acknowledged. “There’s probably a far more complex system beneath the pipes that we were actually able to see. Even if the entrepreneur had Monoyaki’s assistance, and tampered with the system at night, would such a plan work in any normally-designed pipe system? What would be the purpose for a school to have a water system that can be directed to specific rooms at a time? I find it hard to understand why any sensible administration would create such a method.”

[17]

“In that case,” I said, “it might not have been a sensible administration. If you remember the photograph we saw earlier, as well as the documents pertaining to the purchase of the school, it was made pretty clear that the school hasn’t been publicly owned, rather, it’s been owned by Derek Frankson, or rather, the person pretending to be Mr. Frankson.”

“If you’re suggesting that the mastermind altered the pipeworks ahead of time, then it brings into question how much time they even had to completely replace the piping without anybody noticing.”

“Hm, I dunno, six months, maybe?”

“You don’t need to say it in that tone, Attebury...”

“Ugh... Is it such a big problem that I’m a little tense right now? You were the one who suggested that the mastermind used amnesiacs to make us forget the months preceding the killing game, so for you of all people to need clarification...”

“You’re getting somewhat uppity, Attebury.” She lifted her chin up a little, as if to judge me.

“Okay, l-let’s calm down a little.” Archie said, wiping away some sweat. “The other main thing in favour of this theory is, of course, the fact that Mia and I both heard someone using a buzzsaw in the water storage last night.”

“And how?” Dan asked. “I don’t recall seeing any power points in there.”

“Oh.” Mia said, starting to pay closer attention to the trial. “I, uh... I think they used a portable generator.”

“Did you see the person carrying one?”

“I mean, no, I wasn’t allowed to look, anyway, but that’s the only way they would have been able to power it. Archie, what did you do with the power generator I helped you build?...”

“O-oh, that. I think I left it lying next to the computer, sorry...”

“Wait, that can’t be right.” Cody interrupted. “I’m pretty sure I accidently shot it last week.”

Mia gave him a frightened look. “You shot it?!”

“Yeah. It’s a long story, but point is, they couldn’t have been using it to power the saw.”

[18]

“Oh, will you all shut up about the saw?!” barked Monoyaki. “I gave the entrepreneur the generator! I’ve got a couple lying around! Who doesn’t have one or two these days? You always gotta be ready to get off the grid, neighborino, take it from me!”

“Oh.” I looked at the ground for a second, acknowledging that Monoyaki didn’t only give the killer some keys and instructions. “Did you perhaps give them the saw as well?”

“Nah, I don’t have them lying around. I just told the entrepreneur to go get one from the ol’ workshop on the second floor.”

“Understood...” I glanced to the side, considering everything that we knew so far, trying to make connections... All I could say is that the killer had been in the workshop, followed by the water storage, and finally, visited Lucy’s room in order to make sure that she drank the poison. And, once in Lucy’s room, there was an altercation, though Lucy still somehow died from the poison despite being on alert... Maybe she was attacked, and repelled her attacker, but drank the water without realising that it was lethal? But again, she seemed to be aware of Monoyaki’s plan, and the entrepreneur’s visit to the victim’s room seemed to have been necessitated by the apparent failure of the poisoning strategy. Wouldn’t the entire point be to kill Lucy without ever visiting her room? That must have been the only reason, going there to force her to drink it, and apparently, it worked... Now, who was in the workshop recently? My mind instantly went to Jo, and myself, I guess, but I didn’t see him take the buzzsaw while I was there. Of course, given that people barely go there at all, at least, since Jo stopped hanging around there. That’s not the largest timeframe, but realistically, the entrepreneur probably took the saw at night, or at least in the late afternoon, since Archie said that the actual machinery sounds were happening during the night. Or maybe he was the killer? After all, it’s pretty suspicious to be tending to a garden when you can barely even see what you’re doing. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would forget to do it at a better time, especially since botany’s the centre of his talent. The only foreseeable way to deduce the murderer was to hope that Mia had more information, despite having been told not to observe or listen to the killer. “Mia... Is there anything else you can say about the murderer?”

“... U-uh, well, even if I wasn’t supposed to hear anything, I could make out the person talking to Monoyaki a bit, even with my hands over my ears, so... I didn’t hear them closely enough to know who it was, but I could tell that it was a girl’s voice.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

... If there were only two girls left in the killing game...

[19]

“I’m shocked, Attebury.” I felt a dreadfully cold sensation, realising that I’d missed the chance to get the first word in. Mary was glaring at me, looking ever-so-slightly fearful, and yet, fully willing to take whatever measure would be necessary. “I’m in disbelief. You’re the only logical candidate for Rotkappen’s murder, are you not?”

“B-but...” I barely managed to say, “I didn’t either! I mean, that doesn’t prove that it’s me instead of you!”

“Is that so? I would have thought that Lucy wouldn’t have let anyone in her room due to the warrant for her murder, I don’t see how I would have even gotten to her. The only person who could have accessed the room is you, Attebury, who visited her immediately after the motive’s announcement.”

“That doesn’t prove that I killed her, Mary, that’s... It’s...”

“It’s proof enough that I didn’t, no?”

“That can’t be right, can it?” Archie said, looking disconcerted. “You really think Jane’s the culprit?”

“You’re asking a question that you know the answer to, Tulip. We should get on with voting now.”

“I-I mean...” Mia stared at me for a bit. “Logically, Jane has a much higher chance of being the entrepreneur in this case.”

“... Sorry about this, Jane.” Cody said, avoiding any sort of glance in my direction. “Unless you have any points against what Mary’s talked about, we just don’t have much of a choice. You’ve got at least one thing to say in defence, right?”

I genuinely couldn’t think of anything to say, no matter how much I forced my brain to come up with something. There was just nothing that I could use to question Mary’s accusations, or show her as the real culprit. There was fuck all.

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“I wasn’t there, I’m serious... Please...” I mustered, my voice strained. It was hard enough trying not to sob at the sheer cruelty of being set up as the sole killer of the only person left that I really, truly cared for... But maybe I deserved it. If I really didn’t care about anybody else, maybe it didn’t really matter what happened to me.

Humans are evil, and I’m one of them.

[20]

“Look, Mary, let’s be reasonable...” Archie said, exchanging looks between her and myself. “We can’t actually convict Jane with that little evidence. I mean, I don’t feel confident voting for her, so I’m not sure about everybody else’s confidence... Is there any extra information to incriminate her, Mary?”

“It depends. Monoyaki? Can you clarify one more time whether the buzzsaw was obtained from the woodworking class, or if you simply gave it to the entrepreneur as assistance?”

“Why, it was taken from the workshop, uwehehe, and it wasn’t me who took it, remember?” The goat couldn’t hide his glee, and I could tell that it was rooted in the open yet invisible cooperation between him and his new assistant.

“In that case, then I’m sure that Jane must have been up to something when I saw her outside that room. She didn’t seem to notice me at the time, but both of us are aware that she was there before the day of the murder. It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“You weren’t there!” I shouted, well, quietly shouting, if that was even possible. “You, y-you... I didn’t even hear footsteps...”

“You’re not even denying that you were there, Attebury? You can’t even hide your guilt any more.” Mary feigned disgust, but her lip quivered in a way that signalled suppression of laughter. “So distressed over what she did, she hardly believes that it even happened. Yet, she knows it in her heart... The fact that I saw you wouldn’t even be verifiable by a second person, so if you won’t even deny-”

[21]

“No, that’s wrong!~” Said Jo... Of all people. He had a wide grin, clearly entertained by the irony of it all. “I can confirm that Jane went to the workshop that day, since I was in the workshop that day as well.”

“A-and what exactly were you doing there, Leary?”

“I just hang around there a lot, since people don’t come there often. I talked to Jane when she came there, and if I remember right, she never took anything from that room, and neither did I. You saw her in the morning, huh?”

“Yes, but she could have come back later in the afternoon, s-so you wouldn’t see anything.”

“And you wouldn’t have seen her either, huh?~” His usual smug expression graced his face, except it was a bit harder to get mad at it since he was actually trying to help out for once. “Makes me think... Was there a reason you were on the second floor when Jane was there?”

“Simple.”, Mary said, head held high. “I was going to repair a rip in one of my uniforms, and I was making my way to the textiles classroom when I heard footsteps from further up the hall, and since I didn’t expect there to be anybody up there, I investigated, and that’s when I saw her.”

“Alrighty, gotcha.”

[22]

“So,” Archie said, “the workshop point is basically invalid then, right?”

“But Jane still had easier access to Mary’s room.” Dan stated. “It’s interesting, really, how the sudden defusement of an argument only retains the status quo.”

“I’m not super sure if we should vote yet or not...” Mia said, stretching her arms behind her back. “... But I can’t think of anything more to talk about.”

“Hold on.” I said, a little abruptly, but feeling a little more in control. I had taken a chance to gather my thoughts while Jo and Mary were talking earlier. I felt no need to pay attention since I could tell he was just going to talk about when we saw each other yesterday. Hopefully my luck was about to return. “I think I have something I can use to prove that I’m not the killer, and that Mary’s the only possible entrepreneur.”

“Get on with it.” responded Mary.

“See, it mostly revolves around the damage that was done to the wallpaper during the confrontation between Lucy and her assailant. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but when I saw the hole in the wall that was made by Lucy’s scythe, it was exactly level to my eyes. Now, there’s always a potential chance that I could have dodged out of the way, but judging from the fact that Lucy must have been poisoned after the confrontation, chances are, the fight came to some sort of standstill before then. I find it hard to imagine that a struggle of life and death could simply wind down without a physical position forcing the combatants to stop moving, perhaps when one person was pinned down or restrained... Now, I don’t know how somebody with Lucy’s physique could physically restrain somebody, so the only possibility is that the killer was subdued by Lucy by pinning their back to the wall while trapping them with a scythe just around the neck.” Drawing my argument to a conclusion, I stretched my arm to its fullest extent and pointed at Mary.

[23]

“It just so happens that my eyes are level to your neck, Mary. That’s interesting, isn’t it?”

“You’re kidding?” Mary said, sounding surprised and a little disgusted. “I thought you were better than this, Attebury. I counted three times in that tirade where you made an argument relying on something we can’t possibly know: that the damage was caused by something other than a missed swing, first of all, then the idea that the fight couldn’t have calmed down from simple fatigue, and then guessing that the culprit was specifically restrained using Rotkappen’s scythe to the neck. The idea that any of us would buy into this explanation is honestly insulting.”

Dan sighed. “Reconstructing the battle seems to be a pointless endeavour, so it would be best to simply dwell on what we already know.”

“That’s not the point!” I worriedly retorted, “I’m trying to reconstruct it with the evidence we have!”

“How’s this for evidence?” Mary said, as she turned her body slightly to show the musket sitting on the back of her uniform. “If I was actually in an altercation, I would obviously defend myself with my Modèle 1777 corrigé. And yet, there was not a single bullet hole in the wallpaper, nor on Rotkappen’s corpse.”

“Well... I’m convinced now.” Cody said. “There’s no way Mary would resist a chance to use her firearms, and I should know-”

“No way, huh?” I interrupted, in the middle of an epiphany. “You almost got past me, Mary, but there’s a particular reason why you wouldn’t use your gun if-”

“It’s not just a gun.” Mary interjected, as sharp as ever.

“... Your Model 1777-”

“Modèle.”

“... Point is, that ever-so-special weapon had a major liability in that situation. If you shot Lucy, that would completely ruin Monoyaki’s special plan that was set up for the killer. What’s the point of having a markless death by poisoning if there’s a glaring bullet wound in the victim? Not to mention, as one of only two students in the school who has access to firearms, you would be implicated to an extreme degree. Are you really sure you would have fired it off, then?”

[24]

“Y-yes!” Mary raised her voice. “A brave soldier never falters and eschews his weaponry, even in a case like that! I swear, it wouldn’t be honourable!”

“Mary... Has anybody told you that you’re not a real soldier?”

“How dare-...” She flinched mid-sentence, stepping back from the edge of her podium. “... You’re really trying to dig deep into me, aren’t you? Insulting me personally to make me break down. It’s one of the traits of a psychopath... Somebody who would be fine with the murder of someone who was apparently so close to them-”

“That’s fucking precious, Mary. Guess you’re fine with criticising me for slandering you, and then doing it yourself, huh? I only mentioned that to establish that you aren’t nearly as brave as you say you are, and you know that most of all.”

[25]

“Look, calm down!” squeaked Archie, whose leg twitched as he spoke. “If... If you two will stop trying to bully each other into some meaningless confession, maybe we can actually figure out what the hell, uh, what happened yesterday.”

“Well?” said Mary.

“Yeah, well?” I concurred.

“U-uhm. I’d like to ask Mary to show me her... Modèle 1777 corrigé, was it?”

Mary smiled with a small blush. “Certainly.” When she turned slightly to show it off, Archibald stared intensely at the musket, sweating a little and trying to come to a decision over something, I gathered. Eventually, he let out a long, deep sigh.

[26]

“It’s made of Norwegian spruce.”

“And how do you know this?!” Mary bursted out, before clearing her throat. “Th-that’s quite an extreme claim, even if you’re a gardener, you should know that’s an absurd statement!”

“I’m a botanist, and yes, it’s an extreme claim, but it has the same colour as the splinters, the same texture, and judging by the way you hold it, the same weight and density. Even if I didn’t know the name of the species, it wouldn’t be difficult to say that the splinters must have come from your musket. There’s no doubt about it, then... You were the one paying Lucy a visit, and the gun was slightly damaged when you fought her.”

“A-and how exactly DID she damage it? She couldn’t have torn the wood just by punching it! Think, Tulip, think!”

“Wow, it’s almost like Lucy had a scythe.” I said, causing Mary to turn back to me, breathing heavily. “A scythe that had splinters on the edge of it, no less.”

“That’s...! That’s... Not fair...” Any conviction she had earlier seemed to be escaping her now. She and I knew that it was already over, but rather than verbally clawing for her survival, the girl stood as still as the soldier she aspired to be, looking off at nothing. It reminded me a bit of how Robin acted after we came closer to solving the second case, but he at least continued to deny his guilt. Mary, on the other hand, almost seemed to relinquish her position to me.

“Hey, uh.” said Mia, hesitantly. “Are you finished?”

“Guess so.” Jo said. “Funny, one good point is all it takes to shut her up?”

Cody turned his head to the side a bit, pensive, the tail on his hat jostling. “If she doesn’t have anything left to defend herself, then she has to be the entrepreneur then... Mary’s a strategist more than anything, she’d recognise a losing fight.”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

Hearing this, Mary glanced at Cody for less than a second, then back to me, her face a slight bit pained. “You should do your long-winded explanation ritual now, Jane. I know it gives you a triumphant feeling, and I suppose you’ve earned it.”

“... Thanks. I appreciate it, girlfriend killer.” I forcefully sighed, taking a few seconds to think things through one last time.

[27]

“Having accepted his motive, Monoyaki told the murderer to take a buzzsaw from the woodwork and metalwork classroom, and to see him in the garden at night. Once the killer arrived, Monoyaki unlocked the door to the water storage, before telling Mia, who was still occupying the room, to turn her head to the corner and cover her ears, in order to hide the identity of the entrepreneur. The goat then gave the killer a power generator, and directed them to use the saw on the piping underneath the three water tanks, in order to direct an otherwise sealed tank full of poisoned water into the room of the victim, Lucy Rotkappen. However, time passed, and Lucy did not fall for the trap, and, anxious as to the success of the scheme, the killer visited her room, proposing some morning tea before the meeting. The tea, of course, was made using water from Lucy’s tap, and was hence poisoned; but as Lucy knew this already, thanks to her retrieved familiarity with Monoyaki’s methods, she didn’t so much as give the tea a sip, and neither did the entrepreneur. Realising the poisoning could no longer work, the two entered a confrontation... The killer, despite being armed with a musket, which we know from the latent wood matching with the gun’s material, was unable to harm Lucy, due to their previous goal of killing her without any noticeable injuries... Lucy, on the other hand, made good use of the scythe she had displayed in her room, and successfully disarmed her assailant and pinned them against the wall, their neck up to her blade. What happened next isn’t entirely clear; perhaps the killer talked Lucy into letting her guard down, or maybe she didn’t wish to mark herself as the entrepreneur, preferring to let herself die than to kill another... What we know for sure is that the poison was lethal enough to rapidly kill her, as she dropped the cup onto the ground, where it shattered. Now that the victim was taken care of, the murderer simply had to make it look like a suicide; noticing that one of Lucy’s vials was sitting out in the open, they placed it into her hand to make it appear as if it held the poison which did her in, before promptly sweeping the broken porcelain into the bin to hide the actual method, and sat her calmly on a chair. The other cup was taken to the kitchen, and washed thoroughly of its dangerous chemicals, and so recently that it was still wet this very morning. The door was left open, to let the rest of the class see Lucy’s corpse and begin the investigation, and it had all been done in such a short timespan that, despite how close it had come to failure, it was a completely clean kill... An unsolvable case. At least, it seemed unsolvable enough for you to take a chance with it, didn’t it, Mary Bonaparte?”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

“Yes.” Mary nodded. She was so oddly calm. “And it evidently wasn’t enough.”

“... That’s it?” I said in shock. “You’re not going to defend yourself any further than that?”

“I see no reason to make a fool of myself. I’m simply standing down, since I’ve been defeated.” Her voice was solemn, but controlled, though her eyes looked a bit wetter with each passing moment... Which was just pissing me off. I’m the one who should have had a chance to cry. I’m the person who lost everything, and yet she’s the one crying. My breaths got shorter and my body felt hotter, and I was hoping that Monoyaki would get on with the voting before I said anything I might regret.

Monoyaki himself seemed a bit annoyed with how well the trial had gone, crossing his arms. “Hmph, well, I guess it’s just worked out this way, hasn’t it? Well, time for everyone to vote, then. I’ll send the notification to your Monopads. Remember, if you don’t vote, you’ll be murdered no matter if you find the entrepreneur or not, so go ahead and pick someone.”

I voted before anybody else, at least I think I did, it was basically automatic for me. I tapped my finger on Mary’s icon a lot harder than I had for anybody else, and I had to keep telling myself to hold it in, to not let anything slip, lest the others perceive me as being spiteful... But they’d forgive me if I did, right? They understand what I’ve been through, don’t they?...

“Okay, we’re all finished, yeah? Time to bring down the screen thing again, I guess. Here we go.” Unenthusiastically, Monoyaki threw away his juice carton, and the screen lowered as it always did.

[28]

The slots had lost their novelty by this point, but that wouldn’t stop them from spinning as they were meant to, until they began to lose momentum, and line up the portraits of three wide-brimmed soldier girls, followed by the usual loud fanfair.

[29]

“Now hurry up and kill me.”

Monoyaki shook his head at Mary, and yawned. “What, do you think you get to control how long it takes until the execution? Sheesh, maybe you could have just, I dunno won. Anyways, yeah, the entrepreneur who messed up BIG TIME is Mary Bonaparte, the Ultimate Reenactment Soldier.”

“I don’t believe it.” Archie said, under his breath. “I mean, I can believe that Mary killed someone, but the fact that we actually made it...”

“It’s remarkable, yes.” Dan acknowledged. “Even if we’re rather miniscule, witnessing an event with such a small probability is fascinating. Solving the unsolvable case...”

“Uh, what’s this about an ‘unsolvable case’ again?” Mia asked, nobody really bothered to answer.

“Yeah, we’re alive.” I scoffed. “And Lucy isn’t. We’ve got one person to blame for that, huh?”

“I saw an opportunity and I took it.” Mary stated, trying to dry her eyes with her hands. “I have no ill feelings towards you as a person Jane, but I had only been biding my time for the right moment, and-”

“Just shut up. Nobody wants to hear you... All you’ve done for the entire killing game is insult others and claim that your self-preserving attitude was the only realistic attitude to have, and look where it’s taken you! That’s what you get for seeing the world as nothing more than a free-for-all of violence, populated by would-be warriors who only care about themselves!”

[30]

“But I’m right.” As she said that, I immediately felt all the heat in my body drain into the ground. “If I wasn’t right this entire time, we wouldn’t be here. All fifteen of us would still be alive. Attebury... I want you to take a look around the room. You see those portraits? The ones on the stands... You forgot about most of them, didn’t you? And it’s because you never really cared for them. You cared for the stability of the group, but that was for your own preservation, and it was precisely because you couldn’t satisfy everybody’s needs that all your attempts at peacemaking fell apart. Indeed, you cared for no one but yourself... Well, with the sole exception of Rotkappen, the only one you put all your trust in... And look where it’s taken you. I may be on death row, but at least I’m not a mess.”

“... Mary, that’s...”

“True? I think you’ve known that for a long while.” She paused to sniffle. “I’ll admit, it’s not a pleasant truth, but it’s the whole truth. I learned to deal with it a long time ago... You have to be self-reliant to be successful, and that’s the only way you’ll ever make the grade. Since you’ve defeated me, I only hope you’ll make the most of my advice, Attebury.”

I couldn’t respond. I just felt empty. I didn’t want to think. Seeing my inability to articulate myself, she just closed her eyes, and wiped them again.

“Y-you too, Cody. Look after yourself.”

I didn’t hear a response from him. I didn’t end up looking to see how he reacted.

“Okay, are you done?” Monoyaki said, and continued talking without waiting for a response, “Good, then I can start the execution that’s been trained and disciplined in preparation for the Ultimate Reenactment Soldier. Let’s get it underway, uwehehe... IT’S PUNISHMENT TIME!!!”

[31]

The screen displayed a grey, rain-battered field, with the odd fire strewn about and ruins of cannons and fallen manpower. The sole figure standing there was Mary, soaked and chilly, looking worse for wear. As she crossed her arms and tried to warm herself, there was a loud rumbling sound, and then, from the ruined farmstead behind her rose an enormous, metallic visage of Monoyaki, and, freeing itself from the earth, revealed its full mechanised body, standing nearly fifty feet tall. Mary couldn’t really do anything other than turn around and stare at it, as it slowly clunked its head downward to stare at her. Its black eye opened up like a hatch, while the red eye lit up so brightly that it cast a spotlight onto Mary’s position, drawing attention to her trembling face.

**FAKE SOLDIER VS. AUTHENTIC WAR MACHINE**

The gloved hand of the goat mech reached down towards Mary, who, instinctually frozen, aimed her musket erratically and fired a shot into the glove, making a small hole. Though she began to empty the musket and prepare for a second round, it wasn’t long before the glove was constricting her and carrying her up above the face of the mech. It dangled her just above the black eye’s hatch, and dropped her in, before shutting with a clang. The screen then showed the inside of the machine, a dark metallic room with a thin metal slab, upon which Mary fell, breaking a bone or two. Seconds later, the slab grew four cuffs around her wrists and ankles, and flipped up to face forward, causing her to wince as her hat fell off. The camera then turned to reveal that the entire opposite wall of the room was covered in rows of machine guns, all aimed at the girl, waiting for her to notice, as if to give her just a second or two of dread, and just as she opened her eyes, their pupils sinking like a drowning head, she winced and produced a few meager tears. The weaponry unleashed its entire supply of ammunition. By the time they ran out of bullets, Mary’s body didn’t seem to even exist.

And so there were six of us left, acknowledging the fact that there were six of us left this morning as well. It was getting a bit stupid to consider just how bad things had gotten.

That’s when I realised I wasn’t even paying any mind to the brutal execution that just took place. What? It was just another brutal execution in a world that doesn’t care. All I was waiting for was Monoyaki to tell us all to go back to our rooms or something.

“Alright, I gotta level with all of you...” Monoyaki tightened his collar, and somehow seemed to sweat, despite being a plush toy. “I think you can all tell that you weren’t really supposed to win this time around. I had it all planned out that this was gonna be the end point for the Mutual Killing Venture...”

“So you’ve got no ideas left?” Jo inquired.

“Yeah, I guess... So it’s all over.”

“Whoa, wait...” Mia said. “Does that mean...?”

“I... I think it does.” Archie said. “We... Actually made it...”

“No way, we’re actually free?” Cody said, looking stunned.

“We did it.” I said, not really believing it. I looked forward at Monoyaki again, and he was...

Grinning.

[32]

“I never said you were free, y’know.” He giggled, gloves over his mouth.

“But you said the killing game was over!...”

“It’s OVER, but the rules say that the only way to leave is to become an entrepreneur, and not be discovered! None of you have done that, huh?”

“I see.” Archie said, his leg twitching a little. “But if the killing game’s over, then what’s even going to happen?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing, just that I’m gonna leave all of you right here, and let you rot for a while! After all, imagine if you were all allowed to run away into the free world, you’d no doubt tell everybody about what’s happened to you! I’d have every agency in the world tracking me down, and I won’t be able to have any fun with all eyes on me, will I? It’s not about what I do, anyway, it’s about what I encourage others to do...”

“Uh...” Jo said, breathing a bit louder. “You’re not actually going to leave us here, right? There’s gotta be a rule about that or something, right?!”

“Ugh, I know the rules back to front, and all I can say is that you guys had it coming for trying to stop the murders from happening in the first place. All you guys who just wanted to circumvent the entire point of a Mutual Killing Venture are now gonna find out what happens when you don’t play by the rules! I mean, there’s no rule saying that you can’t not kill someone, but it’s an unspoken rule, if we’re being perfectly clear. Anyway, I’ve got business to attend to, so...”

“Stop!” I yelled, increasingly scared. “Stop and wait and just listen for a moment, and-”

“... Buh-bye!~”

(SOUNDTRACK PAUSES)

The lights went out. Nothing to see, and nothing to say.

... We’re dead.

We did everything we could, and now we’re dead in the blink of an eye.

... I guess it couldn’t hurt to cry now. Nobody would see it.

I just sat down and curled up into a ball. I didn’t cry, though. Maybe not because nobody would see it, but because nobody would hear me either. Not even Lucy.

Not even my mother...

... I’m useless.

Continued in Chapter 6 - Prelude.