|
Update 8: If it's going to make you feel better, I can tell you all that I know about the Sekimeiya. Additionally, following a lengthy theory session, Atsuki deems Katei to be lying about being in the security room during the attack. In other news, Sai just took the Sekimeyia out of its cabinet. Scene: Blue Light BGM: Looming   “Hey, what’s up with you!? Didn’t Katei say not to take it out!?” “...What are you trying to do?”Isla extended her arm and let out a charming "Can I have it?"  “Yeah, of course, here.” I looked at the camera in the upper right corner and saw the flickering green light. After handing Ashiya's precious gem to the nine-year-old, Sai answered Akaro.  “I was just considering that what Katei said earlier might've been false. Just in case he's not been the most sincere person.”- “What part of it?” “I'm talking about when he said that the Sekimeiya has to be kept in a cold place. I'm just opening the possibility of him having said it to scare us from taking it out.” “Why would he lie like that? And really, why else would the cabinet have this cold function other than because it's beneficial for the Sekimeiya?” “Why would he lie? I just said it: so that we keep it in the cabinet. The cold function could very well be beneficial, but he made it sound essential.” “...And look.”Sai pointed at Isla, who looked to be enjoying her time despite the serious situation. She was clearly delighted at being able to hold the Sekimeiya, something she would never have been able to do under normal circumstances. “Right now, the Sekimeiya looks perfectly fine to me, yet it's not inside a cabinet that provides it a very low temperature. Strange, isn't it?” “You don't know how the temperature might damage it. It could slowly crack it, which would be very bad. Its strongest point is how smooth it is... Right, Isla?” Isla nodded strongly. She definitely agreed, as she wouldn't stop fiddling with it. “You're right. I was just testing what would happen.” “What if the Sekimeiya had melted after getting it out? Do you know the consequences that would follow!?” “Then Katei would've been telling the truth. Right now, the Sekimeiya looks perfectly normal to me, and it's not like Katei told us exactly what a higher temperature would do. He was just ‘told’ a low one was needed.” “Don't worry, though. If it had melted, we all would've said that he'd forgotten to warn us and they would've busted his rear end.”- “I don't think that's something Katei made up. Naomi also said something similar.” * BGM Stops *  As if he'd been summoned, Katei appeared behind the open door.  Isla, plenty aware of impending trouble, instinctively hid the Sekimeiya behind her back. But she wasn't fast enough.  “What are you guys doing here...? Why is the Sekimeiya out of the cabinet!?” “Rather, what were you doing in the security room? Did you find a way to restore the security system or contact the outside again?” “...No. Nothing worked. I did undo some effects of the alarm, though. The elevator is now functioning, and proper illumination has been restored.” “Sounds great.” “What do you mean, ‘sounds great’!? Why did you get the Sekimeiya out!? I told you how important it is not to remove it from the cabinet!”Katei, who looked and was probably rightfully angry, walked forward and forcefully took the Sekimeiya out of Isla's hands. She gave him a blank, depressing look in response. “Important why? What is the higher temperature gonna do? It looks perfectly fine to me. Don't tell me: it's a real egg, right? It must be kept cold so it doesn't hatch.” “Listen, kid. I know you might find this a boring situation and you're trying to stay entertained. However, you should understand how serious this is.”It seemed Katei had correctly assumed that it had been Sai's idea.  “I don't know what the effects will be. I don't know if they'll happen immediately, but I know one thing. I know that my superiors told me that no matter the circumstances, the Sekimeiya could never be taken out of this cabinet, and that while they were saying it, their eyes were as serious as they could've been.” “The cameras here are disabled, so I'm sure you think you can do as you please without facing consequences. For your own good, or for our entire good, rather, do not think of doing this again.” Katei placed the Sekimeiya back in the cabinet, shut the glass and the curtain, and looked into Sai's eyes as he finished. Sai kept staring back, unfazed, but his expression had slightly changed. If I had to guess what he was thinking... It was probably something along the lines of ‘You're one hell of an actor.’ However, to me, it didn't look like Katei was lying. I didn't rule it out, but I could believe he was very worried the orders he'd been given wouldn't be followed, foreseeing the punishment he'd be dealt by the Ashiya family. “Yeah, sure.” BGM: Breathing Space “I don't know why you don't seem able to believe me. I can't tell you everything, but if it's going to make you feel better, I can tell you all that I know about the Sekimeiya. Maybe I can earn your trust like this.”He didn't only look at Sai, but also at the rest of us. Suddenly, he seemed very serious about proving his sincerity. Perhaps he felt that everybody had been suspecting him in some way. “Again, I was told about this very briefly and only to have the needed context as part of the security staff. I can't elaborate much on it, but given all that Suripo said, it's probably fine if I tell you the basic outline I know.”Instead of saying anything, everybody stayed silent, intrigued by whatever Katei could have to say. “...As you all already know, the Sekimeiya was no more than bait for Xyn. After the last time the tower was attacked, on the 24th of November, Ashiya began to look for something they could use.” “Yushibana is now full of people who dedicate their lives to gemstone location and extraction. The number of them increased exponentially when the tower's opening informed people of the valuable gems in the nearby mountains.” “For many people, going and finding these all around the mountains became a successful gamble. The Sekimeiya was found by a single person who did just that, on the 27th of November.” “Another common practice upon finding a rare or valuable gem is informing the Ashiya family with hopes that they'll be interested in it. For this reason, we were the first ones to be informed of the Sekimeiya. It worked perfectly for Ashiya, as it was described as very unique. Regardless of its actual value, it did look special, so that was enough to work as the bait they needed.” “After paying the original finder for the Sekimeiya and their silence, they purposely touted the Sekimeiya's value as hard as they could. The first mention of the Sekimeiya by that name was made on the 29th, as you probably know. Ashiya let everyone hear they were in possession of something incredibly rare and that it'd be shown today, on the 15th of December.” “Every night until today, we had been expecting Xyn's attack. Everyone was led to think Ashiya had the rarest find in a while, so, as Suripo said earlier, regardless of its actual initial worth, after all the publicity, the Sekimeiya was incredibly valuable for Xyn.” “We sold many tickets for today's event—you all saw how far the line of people extended in the lobby. Upon realizing Xyn could pass up on the bait, Ashiya still went with the second option, which was following with what they'd said and letting the Sekimeiya they'd praised nonstop be seen.” “Naomi was instructed into spitting out a bunch of made-up facts about it and its worth during her guided visit to try to justify all the build-up. To add interaction and lengthen the visit time, the visitors were going to touch its surface, but only inside the cabinet.” “To tell you guys the truth, Xyn did actually attempt to steal the Sekimeiya once. Suripo had no reason to inform you of this, but almost as soon as its existence was announced, Xyn made a move for it.” “As you can see, their plan ended in failure. We even came close to catching someone from Xyn for the first time, but they were able to escape. This was almost Ashiya's success, but this information was never published even though it would've been seen as Xyn's first failure.” “The reason was that they wanted to keep up the charade and put the plan in motion to catch Xyn for real. The Sekimeiya wasn't in this building yet, so the mechanism we had designed wasn't activated.” “Additionally, even though Xyn were the ones to try to steal it, Ashiya had no way to prove it. Since the circumstances were unusual and everyone knew they wanted to defeat Xyn, people could've thought they'd made it all up, as no members had been caught.” “That's all I can say about this. Now, the cold temperature rule was not something Ashiya realized, but something the original finder instructed. They said that according to the time they'd spent with it indoors, to preserve and make sure the Sekimeiya wasn't damaged, it had to always be kept at a cold temperature.” “The fact they knew that putting it under a higher temperature could damage it implies they did so at one point and noticed the damaging effects. However, as you said, Sai, after you all took it out for a bit, it still seemed to be fine. They probably did the same and found out that leaving it for longer could be harmful.” “Ashiya did not particularly care, so they naturally accepted and followed that single rule without much of a concern. This cabinet, alongside others that also possess temperature functions, already existed, so it was a convenient place to keep it after stylizing it a little.” “Since it was found pretty high up on the mountains behind the tower, the temperature there was already very low. At their request, the location where it was found was revealed to Ashiya.” “A vast mountain range surrounds Yushibana, which I'm sure you see daily. On Airun, a mountain close to this building, there is a little upward path that was much more visible a few years ago. That part of the range has almost been abandoned, because when the reason to go to the mountains switched to gemstone extraction, it was determined that not many were to be found on Airun.” “Eventually, up the mountain is a small field that's pretty well-hidden. It's not easy to spot, and you have to deviate onto a smaller path. All I was told was that it's a fairly hidden place.” “There, this was found.”Katei pointed at the cabinet. That was all interesting and consistent with what we knew, but my mind had gone someplace else.  As I expected, when I looked at Shiroya, she was already looking at me. It seemed she'd thought the same thing.  Bizarre as it sounded, the location Katei had just described matched perfectly with the place where we used to play as kids. Past that grassy terrain, there used to be a cabin she and I would frequently visit. It was the same mountain, the same narrow path, and, maybe, the same plain and grassy field that would now be covered by snow. It seemed pointless to think much of it; we hadn't been there for more than a decade, but back in the day, it was the perfect hidden place for us to go spend our time. Not once had we seen anyone else there, but eventually, going to the mountains just to play was seen as rude by the people who tried to make a daily living on them. Admittedly, we also didn't want to have anything to do with the strangers on the mountain, which decreased the frequency of our visits until we finally stopped going altogether. The final visit was something we hadn't even realized was final.  “...Do you remember?”- “Yeah, of course. I'm not sure the place is the same, but thinking back on those times makes me happy.”  “You're right. We used to have a lot of fun there.” Reminiscing evoked a very strange feeling within me. When the weather was ideal, we would spend entire afternoons in our unreachable hidden place, playing all sorts of different games. We brought things from home every day we went to make it ours. Even though if you were to look at Shiroya, you might not have believed it, her usual self was a very cheerful one, so remembering some of those early memories was bittersweet.  On the other hand, after I looked at her... She was smiling, and wore an expression that had lately disappeared from her face. The memories we shared from that time were very special. No matter what I'd tried to say, I hadn't been able to cheer her up. That might've been the first time in two weeks she'd clearly reacted positively to anything, and I probably knew why. Those memories were so old that Miiya had not yet appeared in our lives. That was why Shiroya was able to think about them without sparking the negative reactions that obfuscated everything else. - “Maybe we should go back one day and see what it looks like now.” “Yeah... That is a good idea.”Even though her smile had slightly faded, she seemed to genuinely mean that. It was reassuring to hear, and it made me trust that everything would eventually get better. Katei had kept talking while I'd been digging up old memories, but he'd only gone over his previous points.  “This is all I know. It's not much, but hopefully you can at least believe me.” “You sure are good at coming up with stories to cover your rear end. It's honestly impressive.”Sai said that, but it didn't look like he disbelieved Katei's explanation. He was, most likely, referring to everything else he'd said previously, with the sole intention to provoke him. “If that didn't please you, there's not much else I can say. This was probably more than I am allowed to, actually.” “Ah. I see.”Even though I could've seen Sai's playful behavior as intriguing earlier, it had become off-putting. After shifting my thoughts to some of my childhood memories, the thought of getting out of the tower was much more appealing. Finding out who was responsible for the attack was a goal, but as long as the police had some way to recover the camera footage, they could handle that. They could have already captured the person responsible for all we knew. Ashiya's compensation was certainly a nice thought to keep in mind, too. It was more important to keep an eye out for anyone doing anything suspicious and nail them once we got out than constantly and baselessly accuse anyone in the vicinity like Sai seemed to want to.  “...” “Anyway... weren't you all supposed to be investigating the building? I think it's time for that. We keep repeating this, but Naomi's disappearance gets weirder by the second.” “Yeah, we should go.” “I agree. Let's look through this floor first; it's where she was when the smoke appeared, and it has plenty of disabled cameras.”  We made our way to hallway A. Finally starting to inspect the huge building was an imposing task. A lot of time had already passed, so I had no idea what to think of Naomi's disappearance. She was either incapable of reaching us... or didn't want to.  “How do we do it? Do we split up?” “No. Let's make the situation clear first. Funny things can happen later. Let's enter every room in this hallway and then move on to the other one. After we're done with this floor, we'll move up one at a time.” “Yeah. Let's begin there.”Erina looked at the crystal room in front of the security room. It was the one labeled ‘A1’ on the map.  Given the floor's layout, if there was someone who wanted to avoid being seen, as long as we didn't split up, they could easily achieve that. There were three different ways to make it from one hallway to the other, so we would never be able to rule out a sneaky moving culprit. Taking that same possibility in mind, though, the thought of splitting up was distressing. It was better to investigate together and hope that wouldn't happen.  We were in front of the room we'd start with. Katei opened it, and yet again, I felt the same recurring sensation of stepping into a different world.  A clean floor, walls, and ceiling awaited us. Just like in the room I'd looked at, there were many cabinets, presumably displaying different kinds of valuable gemstones.  “Why are they covered?”As Isla said, the interior of the cabinets wasn't visible. Velvet curtains, as pretty as the Sekimeiya's had once been, were neatly placed over all of them. “Oh, yes, this is something that we do every morning. Except on Sundays, when the tower is closed.” “While at 9:00, the floor opens to the public, it isn't until 9:10 that the showcase cabinets are uncovered. This is purely done for dramatic effect, and, honestly, to give the visitors the impression that they're about to witness something very valuable.” “Oh... Can I?” “Yeah, of course. Let me raise them up for you.”In the same manner that Katei might've seen it done daily through the cameras, he carefully rolled up every curtain, letting us see what they were hiding.  As amazed as a little girl trapped in a building could be, Isla lit up while Katei uncovered the next mysterious interior. Sai looked at it with a similar face, even though I couldn't help but question it. The cabinets in those rooms were different from the Sekimeiya's. They were lower to the ground, and on top of them was a screen of glass that sheltered the gemstones.  “Wow, look at this black one, Mom! Isn't it pretty? I love it.’ “Yes, it's one of my favorites so far. I wish I could wear it as a necklace.”We were all glad Erina was with us and treated Isla as if they were in a normal visit, letting her feel comfortable. Shortly, Katei finished with every cabinet. They had all contained gemstones of different shapes and tones. Some also had a brief explanation below them, detailing where they'd been found along with the name of their finder. Most of them assured they'd once been in the mountains I was used to seeing in the background of Yushibana.  “Do you like this one?”Shiroya was pointing at a tiny, light blue jewel with round white stains on its smooth surface. She'd said it because I'd been looking at it for a while, and she knew that shade of blue was my favorite color. - “I really do. I wouldn't mind going to the mountains someday if I can manage to find one like this.” “I'm sure it wouldn't be easy, but it'd be worth the effort.”- “Yeah.” After having talked about going back to our personal playground, I started to really look forward to the time where we'd visit it again, spending a day trying to find a gem as pretty as that one.  “Can I see it again, Tanya?” “...Huh? Are you talking to me?” “Yes! Can I see your pendant?”A bit confused, Shiroya took it out.  “I knew it! It's even prettier than everything here!” “...What's with that name, though?” “Hm? Tanya? That's you! It's for tanzanite.” “Oh, I see.” “I'll admit I'm a bit fascinated by these myself.”Sai's voice sounded from behind us as he peeked over my shoulder. “I came here of my own volition, after all. We shouldn't spend so much time doing this in the next rooms, though. We have other priorities.” “Yes. Sorry, Isla, but once we're done we'll have more than enough time to revisit every room.” “Hm. You'll still let me see them though, right?” “Yeah. We'll briefly look over them.”
AFancyQuestionMark fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Feb 14, 2023 |
#
?
Feb 14, 2023 00:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 12:13 |
|
|
Update 9: I want to make a lot of theories and then have the best one turn out to be right. That would be great. Scene: Undercurrent (Part 1)  We moved on to the next room, which looked almost identical. The same procedure was repeated: Katei uncovered every cabinet, and Isla had a few seconds to appreciate all of their contents.  BGM: Duo After we finished with it, Akaro spoke. “Do we really have to look at the inside of every cabinet? It's only slowing us down.” “Yes. It doesn't take up a lot of time, and remember what Suripo said. He mentioned some gems on this floor had been stolen. We need to find that room and see if there's something to notice.” “Oh, yes, that's true. He did say it had happened in one of the farthest rooms.”- “You're right... I'd forgotten about that, but it still sounds very weird to me. What do these gems have to do with anything? It sounded like Ashiya have already assumed they were the goal of the attack, which feels very off considering they don't even know how they were brought out.” “You mean to say they were probably something to divert their attention, right?” “I agree. If the plan is over or ended in failure, it could be that some kind of trick was used to get them outside, make them believe they were the goal, and with a lowered guard, steal the actual target: the Sekimeiya.”- “Yeah, something like that, even though I can't really visualize how the plan would work.” “Before you assume that, there's something to think about which goes against it.” “...What would that be?” “Well... the two vertical hallways and the event room were put out of commission with the smoke. If the gems were the goal, it could be assumed that the event room was, for some reason, only attacked because it's the only way to go from the middle of one hallway to the other.” “However, that has a flaw. Even though a function of the smoke was certainly to disable the security cameras, the room those gems were stolen from wasn't ever subjected to the smoke, according to what Katei told us.” “This is very strange, don't you think? It outright implies that the room's security camera was never a factor they took into consideration. So, if that were the case, why did they disable all the others?” “What I mean to say is that the robbery of those gems could've been executed without the need of releasing the smoke in the event room, and that the substance to cover the lenses of the security cameras wouldn't have been needed.” “If being spotted by the security cameras in the room of the robbery wasn't an issue, it means the only other goal of the smoke was to provide a clear route to the outside. The event room and the opposite hallway wouldn't have been needed, and disabling the cameras would've definitely been pointless. This immediately indicates that the gems were never the goal, which breaks the effect.”- “Maybe you're right... If they were the goal, only one hallway and that very room would've been attacked.” “And you also can't assume the smoke was released to make everyone nearby fall unconscious because not all the rooms where people could've been were attacked.” “And yet they were brought outside in a suitcase before the exit closed…” “Yeah, only for the person to then be arrested immediately. I can't quite figure out what the whole deal is here, more so given the Sekimeiya is still with us.” “The people outside think the gems were the goal and that the robbery was a failure. However, part of that relies on them not knowing the exact rooms that were attacked by the smoke. I'm sure more people will conclude what I'm saying once they enter the tower. If the culprit intended to pass those gems as a fake goal, this plan is lacking.” “There's no way it ends with someone sneaking the Sekimeiya out as soon as the exit opens, right? That would be very stupid. Not to mention that stealing the gems would be rendered useless since Ashiya would quickly notice that the Sekimeiya has been stolen too. Then, the gems would ultimately return to Ashiya, and the person who had them would be arrested.”I hadn't taken those gemstones into consideration for any of my thoughts, but he was right.  - “Hey, Katei. I know you said this earlier, but are you sure that the exit was sealed immediately after the alarm went off?” “Hm... While it is the first time the alarm has been activated, it's how it was programmed to work. Anything else would be pointless, really.”- “Could it have been another malfunction? I was just thinking that, perhaps, Naomi brought the gems out.” “Naomi? But that should be impossible, right?” “Not if that malfunction actually occurred. When Suripo mentioned the person who brought them outside, he only said it had been an ‘individual’. It could've been a woman, but I think he would've said it when we mentioned Naomi was still with us.” “If the alarm's effects had been delayed, Suripo would've brought it up, or someone from the outside would've entered. It is true, though, that Naomi, the person who should be here but isn't and knows the layout of the tower well, is a good candidate to have brought those gems out, acting out this ridiculous role of being purposely arrested with a conspicuous suitcase.” - “If this is what happened, targeting the event room too would make sense even if the goal was elsewhere. It was Naomi's location, and she would've needed a way to escape.” “You're... right. I hadn't thought of this, but I'm not convinced. Targeting both hallways still wouldn't make much sense, and most importantly, it implies her plan only worked because the alarm's effects got delayed; it would've been no malfunction.”- “Yeah... Also, we still don't know what actually triggered the alarm, and while I could be wrong, it really seemed to me like Naomi did fall unconscious in our room.” “Hm... Remember what Suripo said? If anyone was in front of the shutter as it closed, it would've stopped. It's possible it was delayed, which gave Naomi enough time to leave even though she was in the event room when the alarm played.” “That's true, but Suripo would've told us as well.”- “Wait, no. I don't think that could've happened.”  “Why not?”- “When I heard the alarm, there was another sound too, much fainter. I just realized that must've been the shutter closing, as it was rough and came from the lobby. That means the effect couldn't have been delayed, and it ended with a louder sound, which must've been it hitting the floor. I'm pretty sure it went all the way without stopping.” “If that's true, it confirms Naomi's still here.”- “Yeah.”  “...Is this a key?”I saw Shiroya staring at the floor, confused as to where to direct her gaze. “...Oh, you're right. What's this doing here?”When we went quiet, the two people who hadn't participated in the conversation spoke. They were a bit ahead of us, so we walked to them. After focusing on the point where they were staring, we saw what Isla had found. Next to the right wall was a small, rusty key.  Isla kneeled to pick it up. Once in her hands, she showed it to us. “Was this on the floor?” “Yes... I just saw it.” “There's no way we've missed it until now, right?” “The color is close to the floor's, and the lighting is bad. I'd say we did since it took me a few seconds to see it.” “...Really? It was right next to the event room.”- “More importantly, what's it for? Do you recognize it, Katei?” “...No. I don't think I've ever seen this key before.”Katei grabbed it to give it a closer look. It appeared very old and rusty; not the kind of key that would be used in a modern building. “It's impossible this belongs here. I know it's an old building and there are keys I don't possess, but it must be for something else. Keys are not prohibited items in this tower. It's possible someone dropped it and didn't realize it.” “How would you not notice it? If you drop it here, the noise would alert you.” “For sure. Which means that whoever dropped it knew they did and then didn't pick it back up.”It would have been a bit ridiculous to think that it had been left purposely to indirectly pass it on to someone or something of the sort. Given what we knew had happened so far, Sai's words made a lot of sense. “You get what I mean, right? This key probably belonged to the culprit.” “As they were running against a timer that would trap them, this key was dropped. Naturally, they didn't waste time stopping to retrieve it.”- “It could be a pretty important key if it's one the culprit was holding as they were committing a crime.” “I'll keep it safe and give it to the police as soon as I can.” “That's a good idea.” “You might be jumping to conclusions again, though. It could belong to an innocent person who rushed to escape from the tower.” “You think so? I'm not sure that's possible. I've gone over this. Why would an innocent person ever rush to escape? One reason would be if they saw smoke appearing out of nowhere. However, they would've fallen unconscious if they ran through this hallway.” “The other reason would be if they heard an unknown alarm, but this can also be ruled out because the alarm blocked off the exit. Naturally, this key doesn't belong to any of us, right?”Nobody answered. He was saying that no innocent person aware of danger could've escaped through the hallway. If the key didn't belong to the culprit, it had to belong to someone who'd also gotten trapped and we hadn't seen. Even Naomi didn't make sense as a candidate—I'd been with her up until the alarm had sounded. If someone had fallen unconscious there, they could have dropped the key and failed to realize it upon waking up. Perhaps even the sound of the drop had been obfuscated by the alarm. Of course, though, that was very unlikely. “I doubt this was here before the attack. There was a janitor cleaning the floor in the lobby, so I'm sure these hallways were cleaned today too.”...On the surface, that appeared to be a very solid argument, but there was a way around it, and it involved something I'd thought before. We didn't know for a fact the smoke in hallway A had been released at the same time as in the other two places. There was no reason to believe it hadn't been, but it would've also let one of Katei's claims be the truth. One part of me wanted to directly ask Katei, but I held off. If someone had heard yells coming from the lobby or seen smoke coming through the door of the event room, they might've rushed out without stopping to retrieve their key... I recalled that, while we'd been about to fall unconscious, I'd heard nothing but silence. I saw Isla in front of the next door. Even though it had been her discovery, she didn't seem very interested. The private revelations of the cabinets' contents were probably very exciting for her instead. “Let's continue for now. If this was important for the culprit, it's likely they'll try to get it back, so I'll make sure to keep it safe until we get out.” We accepted that and moved on. The next room was no different from the previous. Katei went ahead and began to make sure nothing had been stolen from its cabinets.  Sai approached me while I was separated from the others. Anticipating his reason, I was first to speak.  - “Do you still doubt Katei? I think he did a good job of proving his sincerity.” “Oh, of course I still do. I'll agree that he's pretty good at lying.” “You already realized he was never in the security room, right? Why are you defending him?”...I looked at Katei. He was putting up with Isla and acting interested in the gems he'd presumably seen hundreds of times. - “Are you certain he wasn't?” “He couldn't have been there after the alarm went off. I checked the time needed for the computer to suspend, and that confirmed it. The only other possibility is that he was there and lied about using the computer, but that doesn't make it any better.” - “Have you considered that the computer time might not have been accurate?” “The computer time?”- “Yes. If it was wrong, Katei could've had the time to be there without lying.” “To then lie about how much time he spent outside it.”- “Yeah, I know. Maybe you're right and there's no other explanation.” “I have considered the computer time being wrong, and not only that.”Sai raised his sleeve. Under it, there was a digital wristwatch. “I always wear this. It doesn't seem like there are wall clocks anywhere, so the time displayed on the computer is the only source we have available. Besides my wristwatch, that is. My time and the computer's are the same.”- “I see... So that can't be it either.” “Well, as I said, I didn't consider that the computer time might've been wrong, but rather that someone went way further than that.”- “Oh... I-I see what you mean. Yeah, that should be the only way out Katei has.” “Yes. If someone messed with my wristwatch while I was unconscious, they could've made me back up the computer's time. That's going too far, though. After all, one would only do this to frame Katei into not having been in the room. But it's too ridiculous to consider it seriously. They'd need to know that Katei would say everything he said only to turn around and contradict it with the computer's suspended state, risking the possibility of nobody noticing it.” “And not only that, but it's also something that only works with the people who got trapped. This wouldn't mean anything if we brought it up outside, so imagining that someone would set it up isn't reasonable. And Katei, who didn't fall unconscious, would've called out the wrong time. Since he didn't do it, if it truly was wrong, he must've been the one to modify it. Then, as an effect, his truthful claims would've sounded impossible. That's still ridiculous and it doesn't clear his name at all. He also let us talk to Suripo, who could've mentioned the time at any moment.” - “...But why would Katei lie about having been in the security room? Do you actually think he's responsible?” “Or heavily involved in some way. There's no way he's not hiding anything or looking to gain something.”- “So, you don't believe his story about how the Sekimeiya was found? You were accusing him of lying about that too.” “Oh, no. I do believe everything that he said there. It just strengthened his motive further.”- “...Hm?” “I still think the Sekimeiya has to be the core of all this. That has to be right. Now, don't you find it strange that a simple security member would know all that?” “He said it in a desperate time because he wanted to earn our trust, which is why he relied on factual truth to lessen our suspicion.” “But what I think he did was change his own perspective. I'm telling you this in case you think I'm missing something, but I think all he did was join his version with what Suripo told us to form an accurate story and pass it off as something Ashiya told him.” - “I don't follow.” “I'm saying he could be the original finder of the Sekimeiya. He didn't know about what Suripo told us before he did. Otherwise, he would've said it all to earn our trust. Once he knew about Suripo's factual story, he joined his own knowledge with it to make us believe he truly works in the tower.” “The way he detailed some things was very questionable. He knew the exact location where the Sekimeiya was found, and everything he told us was information the original finder would've known after hearing Suripo's story.”- “...That might be true, but it sounds like a pretty big assumption, and didn't he say the finder was already paid?” “I'll tell you one of the theories I formed. It's all speculation, yes, but I think it could make sense given whoever's behind this already went pretty far with all the smoke.” “I haven't told you this since it might not mean anything. You and I both showed up early and were at the front of the line for a while, in front of the hallway B door.”- “Yes. We didn't have a way to check the time, but we definitely were there for a few hours.”  “All right. So at approximately 8:00, I saw Katei in the lobby. The reason why I started questioning him so quickly was because when I first saw him, he was wearing normal clothes.” “Of course, back then, I didn't think anything of it. I don't know what he did either. I just saw him for a few seconds, and if anything, I'm certain he was never part of the line.” “Considering everything, I think this is one of the ways everything could've played out. Take whatever you want from it.” “The person claiming to be called Katei found the Sekimeiya a couple weeks ago. He contacted the Ashiya family, and given their interest, they bought Katei's discovery. At no point did Katei expect they'd set up so much advertisement for his own find. It's possible Ashiya said things that were wrong only to draw people in, and perhaps not being credited as the finder bothered him.” “As a motive, I'll admit it's pretty plain, but at some point, Katei could've realized the value of what he'd found and had been paid for had increased exponentially. That's why he designed a plan to retrieve something he thought he'd been cheated out of.” “The scale of the attack seems too big to have been designed by a normal person who found a rare gemstone in a mountain, but many things line up nicely.” “At 8:00 on the day the Sekimeiya was gonna be shown to the public, he entered the tower. This is why it happened during daylight: Xyn is, for once, not behind it. They had tried to steal the Sekimeiya once and failed.” “I don't know how his plan worked, so I can't tell if the alarm was an intended factor of it, but regardless of that, this person went to meet with the actual Katei Kuiji. I don't know how, since the doors hadn't opened to the public yet, but he wasn't in the lobby shortly after I saw him. By speaking to Katei, he could've learned a lot. About the alarm's existence and the method to contact the outside.” “The way he learned that information isn't important. What matters is that he put on Katei's clothes. Then, he proceeded to hide Katei somewhere out of the cameras' reach.” “He could have done this any number of ways, but Katei was charged with keeping track of the security cameras, so, obviously, nobody could've seen him carrying off a body if that body was the one supposed to be seeing it.” “Along with the clothes, he also took the security room key. Then, he released the smoke in the two hallways and event room through some method I'm unaware of. It's likely he knew he'd get trapped by doing so.” “He acted as if he'd found us and played the role of a security member to justify his presence in the tower.” “Naomi... It's possible he hid her body while she was unconscious. He'd be the one to have a reason because Naomi would've revealed that he doesn't work in the tower.” “By saying everything was confidential, he managed to avoid explaining anything he didn't know. He lied about having been in the security room, since instead, he'd been carrying out this plan of his. This is why he knew things only a person inside the room with all the monitors would've known without actually having been there.” “Suripo said it clearly: the security staff, upon hearing the alarm, would stay in the room and relay information through the installed microphone. But Katei told us that he left it because he didn't know about that before talking to Suripo. He said he used the microphone while we were unconscious, but I'm sure he was lying.” “I don't know why he let us talk to the outside, but it's possible he had something to gain from that. Maybe he wanted everyone outside to think that Katei Kuiji really is in the tower and that everything here is going well. Maybe he wanted to make sure the bait gemstones worked and tricked Ashiya. I don't know how all of this works yet. As I said earlier, that part of the plan seems to be very poorly constructed. It almost feels unrelated to what he did, but that can't be it.” “Anyway, it all comes down to: ‘he had no way to get the Sekimeiya out without spending twelve hours here, so he's intentionally spending twelve hours here’". “I don't know how this plan ends. I have no idea how he intends to get the Sekimeiya out once the exit opens, but consider the following. If he manages to do it, nobody will miss him—none of us will know who he actually was. I'm only speculating that he was the original finder of the Sekimeiya to give an easy answer to the questionable knowledge he's had since the start.” “Once he makes it out, only the Sekimeiya will be missing. Katei Kuiji will still be here, since he's where the person talking to Isla right now hid him. This ghost of a person will have escaped with the real target.” “...After saying it all out loud, I know it sounds pretty absurd, but whatever this plan is, it has to be far from over. There are a lot of things that don't make sense, and somehow, the Sekimeiya is still in its cabinet as if nothing happened.” “...I'm done. What do you think? Do you agree with anything?”- “...” I was looking at the floor, and I'd been listening to everything expressionlessly. Katei remained engaged with Isla while her mother looked on from behind. Akaro and Shiroya were leaning against the wall, waiting to move on. Before I responded, we all walked to the next room, A4.   I waited for Katei and Isla to begin uncovering the cabinets before resuming the conversation with Sai.  - “*sigh* I don't think I can directly object to anything you said…” Admittedly, I did think Sai's theory was ridiculous. It didn't have to be wrong, and I had come to a similar idea myself, but some of his assumptions were a bit of a reach. It was Sai's way to enjoy the incident, though, and I cared about it as well. There was no way it had been an accident. Many things indicated that nothing had happened coincidentally: the day, the smoke locations, the alarm, the recurring Xyn events, Naomi… Before anything else, there are two options to choose from: the plan failed, probably because of the new alarm, or the plan hasn't ended yet. If whatever this plan is hasn't ended, it's almost certain that a culprit must be here with us. Who would that be, and what do they intend to do next?  There weren't that many possibilities. Everything has been pointing to Katei, and there's not just one way to construct it. If he's really a security member, he probably would've had an easy time setting this up. If he's not, Sai's theory is valid too. He's definitely the most suspicious person here. Unless I choose to doubt Sai, it's almost a guarantee that Katei lied about having been in the security room during the attack. There could be many reasons behind the lie, though. If Katei is actually innocent, a similar plan could be worked around anyone who got trapped. Of course, I will rule myself and Shiroya out. We've come here innocently, and never expected anything like this to happen. Shiroya and I have spent our entire lives together, and I know she'd never think of doing such a thing, not even with some crazy motive against the Ashiya family she dislikes. I myself don't suffer from memory loss or split personalities, nor do I have a particular interest in ruining my life after failing a robbery attempt.  Akaro was the last person in our group. Out of us seven, I feel he's the easiest person to suspect after Katei. He claimed not to care much about today's event but was here from the very beginning. Earlier, his behavior was clearly off, but it's gotten better since we woke up. It could be that he's letting the time pass so that his plan can conclude. Since he stands out from the rest of us, though, he's an easy target to blame for a plan Sai and I have concocted.  The same could be said for Erina and Isla, even though it sounds less likely. It's too naïve to rule them out because of Isla's age, though, as a well-thought-out plan could take advantage of that to lower our guard. Out of the six of us that were waiting for the event, only they have their early arrival justified... Isla's the only one who seemed to care about the event, but I can only truly rule out Shiroya and myself.  And Sai... I don't believe he's the culprit, but if he's even crazier than he seems, he could've designed the whole thing and then messed with me for entertainment, maybe even to divert my suspicion and prevent my interference. He could be trying to manipulate me into thinking whatever is convenient for him. I don't think that's likely, though. Similarly, he might've determined I'm not a likely suspect.  There are two more options: Naomi, and an unknown person.  If Naomi wants to let the twelve hours run out to execute the last part of her plan, then not showing herself to us is probably a good idea. She's been hidden from the very beginning and will spend all the remaining time unspotted, able to move by herself whenever she needs to. There's gotta be a good hiding spot somewhere in this huge building. Using Naomi as the culprit puts some meaning behind the alarm's trigger. Suripo said that the only way to activate it was by breaking open the Sekimeiya cabinet, and when I heard the alarm, Naomi was the one next to it. If she silently ‘broke’ it in a way she knew would work, she could've covertly trapped us. Then, when we looked at the cabinet, we failed to recognize what had triggered the mechanism. Naomi must've avoided falling unconscious and made sure her trick wouldn't be noticed. Why would she do this? Could it be that she made it seem as if something else triggered the alarm? To make it look like everything was a malfunction? She could've had something to gain... The fact that the alarm went off right after Naomi unlocked the cabinet with her key also leads me to think that the source of the alarm had to be something else. However, this could have been done purposely to make the three of us eventually say that by the time the alarm had gone off, there'd been no reason to force the cabinet open. After all, there is no way Naomi could've known I'd stay conscious for enough time to hear the alarm. Then, it could've been ruled as a malfunction, which would've allowed other things to also appear as malfunctions. But, if Naomi is innocent, is there more than one option behind her disappearance? Unless she woke up ahead of time and saw the culprit, the only person that could've had a clear motive would've been Katei. She could still be trapped and walking around, but I'm not sure why she wouldn't have shown herself already if she has nothing to do with the attack… Is it actually possible Naomi is currently outside the tower? This would mean that the alarm had a delayed effect and that Naomi's not innocent at all. I'm pretty sure what I heard in the event room was the shutter, but I can't be totally certain. The only way she could be outside is if Naomi is a culprit. Otherwise, surely Suripo would've said that she had made it out safely when we brought up her name. The only way this wouldn't have happened is if Naomi was the ‘individual’ with the suitcase whose identity was kept a secret.  The ‘unknown person’ option was basically the same, but better. After all, with Naomi, we'd know the identity of the culprit by the end. However, if an unknown person has stayed with us and somehow plans to sneak out with the Sekimeiya when the time comes, we'll have no way to know who they were. The lobby doesn't have security cameras. When everyone evacuated, someone hid behind the reception desk or entered the staircase to the mechanical room. Once the smoke faded, they hid in a better place, maybe after moving Naomi's body. Maybe they were in one of the rooms in a hallway, and that's why they made sure we couldn't look at the recorded footage. Once this is all listed out, there are a few extra options, like two people working together. For example, if Naomi and Katei were working together, one would cover what doesn't make sense if the other person is working alone. The two staff members could have easily designed this internal attack thanks to the knowledge they possess. Katei made us think the Sekimeiya we saw was the real deal. Now, Naomi can do as she pleases since she'll be constantly covered by Katei, who will guide all of us as the most knowledgeable person. ...Perhaps that's unlikely since he had no problem staying behind in the security room while we went to investigate. I'm sure there are many theories I could construct, but it would all be pointless. Everything would still be guesswork.  Surprisingly, the conclusion I drew was that if the plan was still being carried out, Sai's theory was close to what I believed to be likely. We had to know what had triggered the alarm. It would clear up multiple doubts and remove possibilities such as the culprit having already escaped. - “Maybe what you said is the most likely possibility. A lot of things point to Katei being suspicious, and he knew about the alarm from the start. That could mean that he's the most likely person to be carrying out a plan that involves waiting for the alarm's timer.” “...Yes, I agree. Either him or Naomi, but with the scenario I constructed, Naomi's already taken care of. Most things are, actually. I don't know how the smoke was released, what triggered the alarm, and how Katei plans to disappear with the Sekimeiya. It's also good to note that regardless of the method, a member of security staff like him could easily design a way to release the smoke.” “It'd be wise to keep track of him at all times. He stayed alone earlier, and in the security room of all places. I'm very curious to know how he intends to make this plan work. He'll probably make sure that we don't come across Naomi or the body of the real Katei, if I'm also right about that.”- “You seem pretty excited.”  “A bit. Aren't you? Aren't you looking forward to knowing which theory ends up being the correct one? Or maybe to find out that we were both incorrect. What if this is all bigger than we think, or just a coincidental accident?” “I want to make a lot of theories and then have the best one turn out to be right. That would be great.” “For example, think about this. Everything we've thought about has been in part based on the call with Suripo. However, our main assumption right now is that Katei is the culprit.” “You brought up a good point earlier: ‘Why did Katei say that we could communicate with the outside?’” “You're right. If he's a security member while also being the culprit, if he hadn't mentioned it, he would've become incredibly suspicious after twelve hours passed. But if I'm right and he doesn't work here, it wasn't very smart of him to have brought it up voluntarily.” - “You're saying that what Suripo told us could've been planned?” “Exactly. ...He spoke very highly of Xyn. What if he was speaking very highly of himself? The group he works for, alongside Katei?” “He was dressed as a policeman and was in a car next to the tower, ignored by everyone around it. If there weren't tricks in the video, he must've been a real policeman. Wouldn't things make sense if Xyn was involved with the police?” “That program hidden deep within the computer's folders could've been another factor of this plan designed by Xyn. They knew Ashiya were working on a mechanism to defeat them, so they created this plan to keep their superiority afloat. Assuming part of what he told us was the truth.” “As soon as he began to explain stuff, my suspicions about Katei immediately lessened. After all, what that policeman was saying matched up well with the information Katei had given us. Now, if they were working together, made-up details would appear like the absolute truth, and they'd make all of Katei's subsequent claims sound authentic.” “Suripo mainly spoke to Katei. If they were following a script, they could confuse us greatly. Suripo is the only reliable source we think we have.” “And after he was done, the power conveniently went out. Not only that, but Katei was unable to contact him again. How believable is that, really? Did the Ashiya family really revoke his authority, knowing they'd leave us incommunicado for twelve hours?” “Wouldn't it be exciting if we were in the middle of such a plan? Would you stop Xyn if you saw through everything?”- “...I'm not excited about being caught up in this, I can say that much. But if I get the chance to take these guys down, I absolutely would. I won't let them get away with this... this poo poo.” “I see. Me, I'm just curious. I can't wait to know how this plan ends. Sadly, there's still a while until that. Maybe they need these twelve hours for something... The number of hours is something both Katei and Suripo said, so it would be strange if it turned out to be wrong.”- “We'll have to see what happens.” “I suppose so, but if this is an ongoing plan, they won't make it obvious. If they're trying to trick the Ashiya family, we might get tricked too. This is why I've been trying to think about it: to avoid being fooled.”- “Hm.”  I didn't feel like saying anything else. A part of me thought that everything Sai was saying entailed pointless danger. I related to the interest, but not so much to his approach. In our situation, there was no reason for us to be in danger. It was something between Ashiya and Xyn, and we'd just been caught up in the middle of it. Letting everything happen without giving our own input to strangers seemed like the smarter course of action. However, trying to piece stuff together on the side would probably not do any harm. Although I hadn't reacted, what Sai had said was intriguing. I'd let Suripo's words influence my thoughts with no opposition, but it was true that Katei had been the one who'd let us hear them. The first thing he'd said had been that Ashiya had instructed them to talk to us without proving it at all. It hadn't sounded all that strange, but instead of telling the police what to let us know, Ashiya could've said everything directly. Suripo had said that Ashiya had told them about the communication method. Initially, the other side should've been picked up by Ashiya, who'd supposedly decided otherwise… While there was room for suspicion, thinking that he might've been an actual corrupt policeman was probably absurd. If he had fed us false information, he would be exposed after we got out. *BGM Stops*  I could feel my head getting cloudy. The tiredness was coming back, so I tried to cool off. The room's inspection finished without anything missing. Once again, we silently moved on to the next one. After not talking for two weeks, my voice had easily come out in front of Sai. As I'd thought, it was only Shiroya who I had difficulty talking to. At the same time, the incident had let me think about something else after so long. It was likely I was trying to fill up my mind with it, as I knew what would fill it otherwise. ...Isla didn't look tired of repeating the same procedure. She ran to the door, eagerly awaiting Katei. I'd noticed that every room kept a specific theme. Before leaving, I'd glanced at the cabinets and seen a bunch of unimpressive white pieces, much smaller in size than the Sekimeiya. Labeled A5, the last crystal room in the hallway was left before the storeroom. When Isla turned the knob, we expected to be met with the same scene as the other rooms.  BGM: Double Existence “Oh…”The entire room was tinted black, and it was shaped differently. The ceiling and four walls had been deprived of their color, as a dry, dark coating had taken hold of them. Every cabinet was covered by a curtain, but instead of bright red, they were gray, black, and purple; colors that removed all of their elegance. It was the same appearance the hallways bore. We immediately understood the smoke had also gotten into the last room. We only found it a shocking sight because of what Katei had told us.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2023 23:26
|
|
|
Oh and i was about to question why we assumed suripo to be real.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 01:10
|
|
|
somehow it took until this update for me to notice that Sai's dialogue is being represented by a Psi symbol, that's p cute
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2023 03:49
|
|
|
plot twist: The 10 yo kid is the real mastermind behind everything
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2023 02:10
|
|
|
Kinu Nishimura posted:You must be an extreme turbo brainlord to properly enjoy this story. I hope at least one reader for whom this is the right kind of game reads this thread! I backed this game (but haven't played it yet) and know some of the people involved in making it. I can confirm this is 100% exactly what I would expect from the devs involved.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2023 05:45
|
|
|
I enjoy mysteries, but I will say that this game will get very tiring very fast if we keep getting entire chapters of characters speculating on the plot with too little information. I am more than capable of crafting wild theories myself, game--I don't need your help there. I need you to keep giving pieces to the puzzle so I can refine said theories. I'm beginning to suspect one of the game's tricks is that we need to sort the actual facts from the ideas the characters get into their heads about what's going on.
|
|
#
?
Feb 21, 2023 17:41
|
|
|
Update 10: You are full of poo poo. Scene: Undercurrent (Part 2) BGM: Double Existence  “I see. This makes a lot of sense.” “What does? Didn't Katei say that the smoke hadn't been released in any other room?” “...” Instead of clarifying himself, Sai moved forward. He stained his hand black by grabbing the bottom of a curtain, and without any care, he raised it up to show us the interior of the cabinet it was protecting.  “What...? There isn't anything…”He kept doing the same with every cabinet, and the result was always the same. - “I see, this is the room that was robbed. The gems found in the suitcase came from these cabinets.”   “Yes, that has to be it. But the smoke…” “You all remember what I said earlier, right? That this part of the plan didn't make a ton of sense. The gems were stolen without releasing smoke in their room, which implied that there'd been another goal behind the smoke.” “But it seems the smoke was released in the room too. Of course, that's required if they wanted to make it seem like those gems were the target.” The lens of the single camera was stained black, showing that we weren't being recorded. The green light had been buried under the same blackness, but it was still discernible. “Katei told us the places where the smoke was released. Obviously, he wouldn't have said that if he hadn't been sure of it, so I believed him.” “I'm sorry. I must've made a mistake.” “No. I have no idea why you did that, but this settles it: this proves you were not in the security room when the alarm went off.”Sai glanced at me to let me know that he'd been correct. I was probably the only person aside from Katei who knew what he was talking about. “What do you mean...?” “Exactly! What do you intend to say now?” “You didn't even suspect it? This is about the fifth thing that confirms it, but this one lets me talk about it openly. After all, it also rules out a few things I talked about with Atsuki.” I more or less understood why Sai had said that. Without inspecting every room, Katei had felt confident in saying that only three different places had been attacked with the smoke, but he'd been incorrect. That indicated he hadn't been behind the attack itself, or he wouldn't have been inaccurate. It let Sai confront him since he no longer believed he was confronting Xyn, but a mere suspicious individual. “I don't know what you mean... How does this indicate in any way that I wasn't in the security room?” “It's very simple, but let me ask first: why did you say that only the hallways and the event room had smoke released in them?” “...I had a bit of time to inspect these rooms before I found Erina's group. Every room I entered was clean, so I simply assumed it was the case with all of them. I shouldn't have made such an assumption.” “All right. This proves it further. You were not in the security room.” “...” “You all get it too, right?” “Katei has said multiple times that during the time the smoke was released, he was locked inside the security room. He also claimed to have tried to monitor what the situation was on this floor by looking through the available cameras.” “Not only that, but he also said that he saw the smoke rising out of nowhere. I'm saying that if he really was looking through the cameras when the smoke appeared, he would've seen it being released here.” “What? No. I was in a rush, so I never realized it.” “I don't understand it at all. You were never in the security room and you never inspected the first floor. So, then, why did you say that only three places had been hit by the smoke? Why were you certain you could say that, despite being wrong?”That was the same question I'd been wondering. If Sai was right, Katei wouldn't have said incorrect information he hadn't been able to verify, which meant that he had felt certain about the room's appearance without having seen it personally.  “Your assumption is mistaken. I can explain what led to my wrong assertion. When I was in the security room, most of the cameras from this floor were being displayed. It is true that I saw the smoke appearing out of nowhere, but at that time, this room's camera was not being shown. Usually, monitoring the interior of a room isn't needed if another camera shows its door.” “Then, I proceeded to look through all the other cameras trying to determine what was happening. As you saw with your own eyes, some of them had been disabled: because of the smoke, a black screen was all that I could see through them.” “So, all that this room's camera showed was a black screen. This means that I was unable to recognize that one of the disabled screens belonged to this room. Since both hallways possess numerous cameras, I did not notice there was one too many black screens. Later, since I looked into most of the clean rooms, I wrongly assumed that they all were the same.” “Hm.”We all thought about it. Did what Katei said make sense? If I'd been in their places, it's likely I would've believed it, but Sai and I had more reasons to think Katei had never been in the security room and that he was fabricating another lie out of nowhere.  “Are you really sure about this, Sai?” “Absolutely.” “Now answer me this. At first, you saw the smoke being released through some cameras. To assess the situation, you looked at all the remaining places of this floor, and this room wasn't initially being displayed.” “Correct. This is why I never saw the smoke appearing here.” “All right. So, then, you switched the displayed cameras. This means that at some point, you switched one of the cameras for this room's. You mean to say that when you did that, you didn't realize that the smoke had also been released here?” “Oh, I see what you mean. That eventually, I must've chosen to observe the live footage of this room by manually selecting its camera, and that I would've noticed the black screen.” “...Yes.” “It's understandable you'd think that, but no. That would've been slow and suboptimal in such a situation. Do you remember earlier, when I looked through the cameras while talking to Suripo?” “The program that manages them lets me replace the nine cameras being displayed at once for the ones that come next on the list. That's what I did.” “I was nervous and switched the cameras nine at a time. I never consciously acknowledged that one of the new cameras belonged to this room. As I already said, I simply failed to recognize that there was an extra black screen. The crystal rooms all look very similar, so I didn't really miss this one.” “The shape of this one is completely different, though.” “To tell you the truth, it all threw me off. The mere sight of the screens displaying nothing but black was disconcerting because they're equipped with night vision and I'd never seen them like that. I wasn't really thinking about the number of crystal rooms.” “...” Katei's explanation was unconvincing, but there was nothing Sai could object to it with. At least, not without the computer's suspension timer, which Sai didn't appear to be using for his argument. Katei hadn't addressed the event room either. If he'd seen the smoke appearing in the event room, it should've been a given that our group had been trapped in the tower, but that wasn't what he said when we met. It was unbelievable that the event room wouldn't have been displayed on such a special day. If it really hadn't been, it meant that Katei hadn't failed to notice one extra black camera, but two. And it was still very questionable that he had stopped at Erina's group before ours. Everyone else looked dubious as well, but less so, as they hadn't yet entertained that possibility. “So, you switched all the cameras at once and, for some reason, assumed only three places had been exposed to the smoke.” “Yes. I saw the smoke appearing in the hallways, which disabled multiple cameras. I mistakenly assumed all of them belonged to the hallways.” “And after that, despite not having looked through every room, you claimed that the smoke hadn't been released anywhere else but in the three places we'd all personally observed.” “Correct. I apologize for my mistake. It seems it led you to suspect something about me, but I repeat that it was all a mistake I made in a rush.” “Let me be clear: I don't believe you nor intend to do so. You are full of poo poo. However, I don't know why you told us that only those three places had been hit, and it's pissing me off. Do you remember when you said you'd left the lobby door open? As Atsuki said, it must've been opened after the smoke had been released since almost none had gone through it. Do you still maintain that?” “Yes, of course.” “Well, when you said that, I looked at the hallway A door. That one was properly closed.” “...And?” “According to you, after you left the security room, you ended up where we were without going through the event room. If you'd done that, you would've gone through the lobby, so you should've opened both doors.” “Which is what I did.” “And why did you leave the hallway A door closed but not the other one?” “...Because the three of you were unconscious in hallway B, and I hurried to kneel beside you.” “Sure, I imagined you'd say that. However, if you really opened that door, what I find most likely is that you didn't come from the security room and that you never went through the other one. Maybe it was Naomi who opened it and you had to say it had been you because of the movements you'd already claimed you made.” “You're ridiculous.” “Okay, but if you'd never looked at the cameras or entered the rooms, why the hell did you say something that could easily be wrong...? Were you misinformed about the plan you took part in? That's what would be ridiculous.” “*sigh* I already told you what happened. If you find it hard to believe, there's nothing else I can do.”There were a few seconds of silence during which nobody knew what to say. In the background, Isla ignored us and kept looking through the cabinets, hoping something had been left behind. Erina followed everything she did with her eyes, obviously unwilling to needlessly engage in the barrage Sai was firing off.  “You know... It's possible you're right. It's possible that not having noticed the extra black screen and the missing crystal room is too unlikely. Even under the stress of not knowing what was happening.” “What if this room was clean at that time? It has already been a long time since I looked through the cameras. The smoke could've been released here afterward. This wouldn't contradict anything, and it might make even more sense than what I first believed.” “Is this your revised lie? Do you intend to make us believe that?” “Well, I don't know why that would've been done, but you can't deny it just because you find it unlikely. It could very well be that it happened after I left the security room. The rooms all look very similar, so maybe I did see this one when I looked through the cameras. Now I'm not sure. I don't know which of the two possibilities I'm presenting is the correct one.” “You know very well they're both incorrect. But yes, I can deny the second one.” “How would you do that?” “It has to do with something very important. Normally, I would've brought it up straight away.” “It makes this whole situation much easier to understand. Remember the two questions from earlier? Why were the gemstones stolen, and how were they brought outside before the alarm went off?” “I'm fairly sure the answers are, respectively, to make it seem like they were the goal of the attack, and because they were stolen before the time we thought.” “I'm basing this on the fact that the curtains here were lowered when we entered. Most importantly, they were stained with the smoke. This means that during the time the smoke was released, the cabinets were covered.” “If, as the Ashiya family thinks right now, when the smoke was being released, someone stole the contents of these cabinets, why would they have dropped the curtains back down? No way they would've all fallen down by themselves.” “You all see what I'm saying, right? It would have been a pointless waste of time to lower them. After the smoke was released in this room, the curtains weren't moved. Or, to put it simply, the gemstones that were once here were stolen before the smoke was released. This is why someone was able to bring them outside before the exit closed.” “I suppose that makes sense, but how did they do that?” “You tell me. What's important is that they could've been stolen during the night. Then, before the exit closed, they were brought out.” “By releasing the smoke here too, they tried to give off the illusion that the gems had been stolen at a later time and that they had been the target of the attack.”- “...What you're saying makes sense, but I still have a hard time visualizing how this plan works.” “Me too. A very important thing we don't know yet is whether the alarm was taken into consideration. You said it was a top-secret alarm, right?” “Yes. I believe it's nearly impossible that Xyn designed a plan with it in mind.” “If you're right, that means that the smoke here couldn't have been released after you left the security room. That would only have been done if they'd known the exit would get locked.” “I believe you're right. If they didn't know about the alarm, they would not have delayed the attack on this room. The smoke would've been released everywhere at once.” “...Exactly.” “...Can I say something? We're only assuming the gems here were stolen before the time of the attack because the curtains were down. That makes sense, but wouldn't they have thought of it?”- “That's true. If Xyn didn't know about the alarm, they must've expected Ashiya to rush in right away. Then, they would've seen the lowered curtains, which wouldn't have made them think that those gems were the goal.” “Yeah. After all, they only believe that because they don't have access to the tower. Isn't it as if the alarm is working positively for the culprit?” “Yes... Like Sai said, the curtains indicated that the gems weren't stolen after the release of the smoke right away. There's no way Xyn would've ignored that, right?” “Not if they didn't know about the alarm. If they did, and the intent was to simply let Ashiya trust what they believe until the tower unlocks, it doesn't matter that we've figured it out. After all, it's not like we can contact the outside to tell them, right?” “You're wrong. Then they would've had no reason to release the smoke here.” “Hm, I'm not sure. We did have the chance to talk to the police, but it happened before we came here. I'm saying this was done to trick Ashiya into thinking the gems were the goal. However, I also think that the plan must somehow end by stealing the Sekimeiya, which will directly reveal that the gems were never the goal. It could definitely be that the smoke was released to trick us—the people who got trapped. It greatly depends on what the plan relies on.”There were a few seconds of silence. Would Xyn have put so much effort into deceiving us? It didn't sound likely, but it was true that we had a method to contact the outside and could've informed Ashiya of every suspicious detail we'd noticed. It was strange, because if the culprit had always been able to disable the communication method, there would have been no point in trying to trick us.  “...Do you actually believe the alarm was considered?” “Who knows? If the gems were stolen during the night through some method Xyn are capable of, they'd leave the curtains lowered to prevent their interiors from being seen through the cameras and so that the visitors couldn't see them before 9:10.” “I wasn't the guard on duty last night, so I can't help you with that.” “...Well, they were forced to leave the cabinets covered, but doing so also indicates that the gems were stolen before the doors were open to the public…” “*sigh*” “I don't know why. I've approached it from different angles, but I can't form a plan that works well. In some way, these gems must've only been a side part of the plan. Having been stolen before the smoke was released is close to confirmation, but how everything pieces together is not as simple to figure out.” “I apologize I can't be of more help. I will assume this is Xyn's doing, but I don't know what they intend to do. I am equally clueless when it comes to how these gems could've been stolen before this morning.” “Sai, I know you don't believe much of what I say, but I have been honest from the beginning. I have just been trying to help and provide you with as much information as I can.” “Is that so?”While everyone stood still, Sai began to examine the room. Even though it looked drastically different from the others, only the illumination and shape varied. It was still a simple room that only contained cabinets. “I don't think there's much to do here. Every cabinet is empty, and the same kind of smoke was released, most likely at the same time as in the other places. We should move on.” “...Yeah. Let's get going.”Isla seemed happy with that proposition as well. We all agreed and left quietly to avoid any more conflict.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2023 01:10
|
|
|
Perhaps an odd question, but has there been any gameplay or decisions made by the player yet? Thus far it still seems like it's all still setup.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2023 01:53
|
|
|
I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say this: the game is pretty much entirely linear. Decisions are few and far between (especially relative to how long the game is), and digressions from the 'main' path tend to be fairly short, though still helpful in putting things together.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2023 03:53
|
|
|
Update 11: We've already spent a while investigating, and it's getting old. Scene: Undercurrent (Part 3)  Only the storeroom remained in hallway A. We tried to enter it together, but it was too narrow for all of us.  It was a stretched-out, dim room. While the name implied that its purpose was to store things, the space didn't allow for much of that, and it only contained a few empty shelves and a dusty couch that looked dangerous to sit in. Even its door was of lower quality than the rest.  BGM: Kenopsia I exited the room as Akaro and Erina entered it. Sai seemed to be enjoying himself, considering different options in an attempt to "win". If we parted from the assumption that there was a plan more complex than met the eye, I had something to consider. We had all assumed that the gems had been stolen before the smoke had been released since the curtains had been lowered. If anyone had stolen the gems after the attack, they would've had no reason to waste time lowering the curtains again. However, that was a very simple indicator of the time the gems had been stolen, and one that would not have been ignored. So, what if the curtains had been lowered again precisely for that reason? To make us, or anyone who looked at it, think that they had been stolen before the time of the attack. After all, anything else would've been the culprit's mistake. I couldn't think of an immediate reason, but misleading us about the time or reason behind an action was a very powerful move. The effect would never have been achieved if they'd truly stolen them during the night and left the curtains down. ...But, realistically, even though Xyn could've been involved, how could they have emptied so many cabinets during the night? Hadn't the police been nearby? Hadn't the cameras been monitoring everything? Before I could determine if there was a better conclusion to reach, everyone left the storeroom, Katei returning last.  “We didn't all have to enter. There isn't anywhere to hide in here.”- “What's this room even for? It's called the storeroom, but there wasn't much inside, and I doubt it'd be of much use with how small it is.” “Things have been stored here before, but it's true that now it looks like a useless room. I heard that this room already existed before this building started to be used for business, and it was too small to give it any other purpose.”- “I see…” The door didn't look that different from the others. However, once you opened it, the room would detract from the elegance the place usually had. I figured that when the building had been repurposed, they must've replaced the door but left the inside unchanged. “...So we're halfway done with this floor. Maybe we'll find something in hallway B.”To get there, we stepped into hallway C for the first time, which contained the stairs and elevator to move through the different floors.  “What's this...?”Something immediately caught our attention.  “It's a suitcase, Katei.” “...Yes. What is it doing here?” We all approached it. As Sai had said, a small, conspicuous black suitcase lay in the middle of the hallway, next to the wall. “Let's see... There might be something inside.” “Nothing...?” “That's disappointing, but I suppose otherwise they wouldn't have left it here.” “Did you see this when you looked through the security cameras?” Erina looked at Katei. The cameras in hallway C hadn't been touched, so Katei should've been able to look through them. “He didn't.” “Right. I would've told you if I had.” “I see. Does that mean that it was left after we woke up?” “No, of course not. Did you not hear anything I said? He never looked through the cameras.” “You're still going with that? I guess you'll never change your mind.” “I understand you can't say that you saw this suitcase since it'd be suspicious you hadn't told us, but stop trying to reinforce your lie. It's kind of pathetic.” “If you really hadn't seen anything, it would mean that someone was here after or right before we woke up. It's not impossible, but I don't find it more likely than you lying.”Katei looked at us. He was asking if we all thought the same, and no replies were heard. “Look at where the cameras are positioned. A bit of smoke covered them, but not enough to block the image completely.”   “One encompasses the bathrooms, and the other records the staircase and elevator. This middle section isn't shown at all. Even if the suitcase was here, I wouldn't have seen it. That's why none of us saw it earlier when we briefly looked through the monitors.” “I figured you'd say that, but it's only an excuse. If it is as you say and you inspected this floor, there's no way you never came across it.” “No, it is exactly that. I inspected part of this floor and didn't see it. Not because I didn't come here, but because as I said, by then it wasn't here yet.” “I see. It's a shame the recorded footage just so happened to stop being recognized.” “You're right, that's unfortunate. It'd be an easy way to prove myself.” Sai and Isla had kept examining the suitcase, but they still hadn't found anything. No smaller compartments appeared to exist, so it was actually empty. “Look. I can see traces of the smoke.”- “Oh, right. There's no way it was hit directly, though.” “Yes. Perhaps it made contact with it before it had fully faded. I'm not sure.” “Why was it left here, then? If it happened after you looked around, it's only telling us that someone else is still here.” “But we already know that. It must've been Naomi. After she did something, she must've wanted to get rid of this and didn't care about leaving it here. It makes sense that she would have disabled the security system before dropping it.” “That's stupid. Footage is still being recorded, so I doubt she'd care about us not seeing her. Especially given that leaving the suitcase after we woke up tells us she's here.” ...The culprit must've wanted to get rid of the suitcase as soon as possible since it's linked to the robbery attempt. Suripo did tell us an "individual" was found outside with a black suitcase, so being seen with one wouldn't be desired. If Katei is telling the truth, it means that whoever left it here could've only been Naomi or an unknown culprit. ...There's technically another possibility, but it's too ridiculous to consider it seriously.  “When we went to the mechanical room, you all stayed together, right?”For better or worse, Sai had been thinking the same. “Yes. Nobody left the security room.” “You want to suspect us this openly? Did you two get separated at all when you left?” “N-Now that you mention it, yes. I went to the mechanical room while Atsuki said he would inspect the rest of this floor.” “Wh-What?”It was a strange sensation, seeing everyone turn to me while I silently waited for Sai to retract what he said.  - “...He's messing with you.” ‘Probably. We didn't get separated.” “You aren't being funny.” “Well, I'm just surprised you don't find us suspicious.” “Why would we? Even though you left, that's not enough of a reason.” “Ah, no. That's not what I meant. I think you have a good reason to suspect us. Don't you remember when we got back? We said we'd gone to the bathroom, didn't we?” “Did you? I didn't hear you from under the desk.” “I bet you regret not accusing us first, then.” “Did we go to the bathroom and miss this suitcase? It could be Katei was right and it wasn't here yet.”- “...Don't take him seriously. We didn't go.”  “Of course. Katei wouldn't really tell the truth, would he? Admittedly, we were a bit late, so we agreed we'd say that so we weren't suspected of anything. We never came here, but I knew we should've. Didn't I tell you?” “So you accuse me of lying and immediately admit to having lied yourself. Your arguments keep falling apart.”- “...We don't really have a way to know when this was left, but I'd say it's likely it wasn't one of us. It must've been left by the people behind the attack.” “Right, and most likely before we woke up. There could be a reason why they had to leave it here.” “...Like what?” “No clue. I'm only saying that because the smoke wasn't released here. Even though this exact spot isn't recorded, whoever left the suitcase must've been seen by one of these two cameras.” “If you wanted to dispose of something incriminating, I'd say you'd do it in a place without cameras, and there are many.” “That's true. If it was left after Katei inspected this floor, whoever did it is back to hiding.” “Which is why we should keep investigating. Let's finish checking the crystal floor and move up.” The bathrooms were empty, so we were ready to move on. Regarding the suitcase, we weren't sure what to think, but we didn't take it with us. I thought of what Sai had said. The location where it had been left was the only information we had to work with. I didn't want to think too deeply into every detail, but something came to mind. It could be that Katei was right this time. The location someone chose to leave the suitcase was one we hadn't yet been in. If the culprit left it there before we woke up, I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't have left it in one of the two vertical hallways. After all, at first glance, the plan only involved them and the event room. At no point was it necessary to enter hallway C, with dangerous security cameras. I felt someone might've been nearby and had known we hadn't yet been in hallway C. They'd chosen it so that we couldn't be sure it hadn't been there the whole time. If they'd known we couldn't access the saved footage anymore, they could've tricked us into thinking that. If they had left it in one of the two parallel hallways, we would've immediately known it hadn't been there before. In addition, the spot wasn't in range of any of the cameras, so we couldn't have seen it while we'd been in the security room. But that idea had a flaw: the trick wouldn't work on Katei, who'd already inspected that part of the floor. However, there were many reasons to believe that had been a lie. The culprit could've known that Katei hadn't been in hallway C, and unaware he had lied about it, they had placed the suitcase to trick him as well. There weren't many better places to do that. It was true that upper floors existed, but according to Katei, they weren't open to the public. No matter the way I thought about it, it was strange that it hadn't been left in a room without cameras like the storeroom.  I thought about it as we entered hallway B, and an ominous feeling hit me. If I was right, someone else trapped there was still very close to us.   We walked to the first room, which had a sign stuck on its door. When we removed the smoke dust on it, we saw an image of a mop and a bucket.  “As you see, the cleaning cart is left here when it's not in use, alongside cleaning products and items.” “Yeah, there's probably nothing of importance here. It's not a big room.”Akaro was first to step inside and glance around. As he'd said, the room was small and only served the clear purpose of storing cleaning materials. After stepping in and out, we all agreed and silently moved on to the crystal rooms in hallway B.  We had the first one in front—B6. Once Katei and Isla made sure nothing was off, we moved to the next door.   “This is the staff room, right?” “Yes. Visitors are not supposed to go in, but it's not locked.” “So we can't go in?” “Don't worry. The circumstances deem it necessary.”Katei opened the door. Behind it, we saw another small room, different than all the others we'd been in.  “Every staff member has their own space here. We use it to leave and pick up personal objects, and it's where we leave our uniforms before heading off.” “I see. So the belongings of some employees are in these lockers.”Isla soon stopped looking interested, but for the rest of us, it was the most interesting room yet. “Yes, but everyone tends to lock them.” “Let's see if one is open.” “I'm not sure we should. We might get in trouble.” “It's possible devices such as phones are kept here. Finding one could be incredibly useful.” “As I said, they're not usually left open. You can check if you want.”Sai went ahead and tried to open every locker. Shortly, we confirmed that Katei was right: they were all locked tight.  “You have your own locker, right? Do you keep anything that could be useful in it?” “No. They do allow us to bring phones in as long as we keep them here, but I never bring mine. Right now, the only thing in my locker should be my coat.” “Can we see it?” “You want to see my coat?” “Partly yes, but I also want to see the lack of other things.” “Do you still think I'm lying? Very well, it's good that this is something I can easily prove.”Katei took a few keys out of his pocket. One of them was the one he'd used to unlock the security room. He inserted a small one into a locker and turned it. Without a problem, he opened the door and showed us what was inside. We could only see a coat, but Katei went ahead and brought it out to show that nothing else was hidden behind it. He went as far as to show us every empty pocket.  “You see? I understand it's easy to suspect me, but I've only been telling the truth.” “One truth doesn't make up for all the previous lies. Certainly, if the contents of your locker were harmful to you, you would've claimed not to have any.” “I really can't make you happy. Do you have more requests that would prove my sincerity?” “No, not really.”Katei put the coat back inside and locked the mechanism. All the lockers were very tall and had an extra smaller compartment in their upper part. Three horizontal bars could be seen in the metallic doors; slits that allowed us to somewhat see the interior of those smaller compartments. However, I couldn't spot anything of importance, as the darkness concealed what was in them. Everyone was listening closely to the conversations between Katei and Sai. Sai kept reiterating that Katei was openly lying to us, so they must've wanted to form their own thoughts. Sai knew nothing would be found inside the locker, so I suspect he wanted to see that coat. If it was the same one he'd seen Katei wearing in the lobby, it could back up his identity. Since he didn't react to it, it's fair to assume it was the same one, but it doesn't settle anything. One extra step of his impersonation plan could've involved changing the locker's contents while we were unconscious.  “Could there be a way to force open the lockers? One of them must be Naomi's, so it'd be interesting to look inside it.” “What? No, please don't think about that. There are no tools to do it with, the lockers are very sturdy, and I'm sure Ashiya would not be happy.” “Similarly, I'm not happy with spending twelve boring hours here without getting to conclusions. Right now, Naomi is very suspicious.” “And what if she is? What do you think you'll find inside her locker? I'm letting you overstep a little. You shouldn't be allowed in this room, but I will not permit greater violations. Please, get this idea out of your head.” “I'll keep thinking whatever I want, but I agree. It'd probably be a worthless hassle. If Naomi is the culprit, she must know how suspicious she is, so she wouldn't have left anything relevant in her locker.” “...That's what I'm saying.”Isla tugged at Erina's clothes. “Let's go. There's nothing in here…” We kept moving at a good pace until we had searched through the remaining five crystal rooms in hallway B. They all looked the same, and nothing felt out of place.  “This is it. We knew that if someone was hiding, it wouldn't be easy to find them.” “Yeah. It's already past 10:00. One more person is confirmed to be with us, so if she hasn't appeared yet, she must not intend to show herself.”...Sai and I considered that Naomi's body might've been hidden. If that's what happened, it's likely no one else is hiding. The main point that indicates otherwise is the suitcase, but if Katei lied about it, he could be who hid Naomi. “We'll have to move up, then. We might find something on the higher floors.”- “Our priority should be to understand the structure of this place and find Naomi. We'll have many hours to go after that, which won't make it easy for anyone to stay hidden.” We approached the hallway C staircase.  “Only employees ever go to the other floors. The structure of this building is like this…” “Right now, we are on the crystal floor. The five floors above us are offices, and they were empty during the attack.” “Why are there so many offices?” “When the structure of the building was first expanded, it served the purpose of containing many offices that worked for Ashiya. This was before they thought of using the lowest floor as a sort of museum.” “That was the case for a while, until the perception people had of this place shifted to what it is now: the single remaining entity of Ashiya in Yushibana and a tourist attraction point.” “Nowadays, not many people who work in the offices remain, and they closed entirely just this December. Ashiya doesn't make much use of them anymore, so they might disappear and be reworked eventually.” “The seventh floor is the Ashiya floor, also called the attic. I explained about it earlier.” “Can we go in there?” “There's no way. As I said, I've never entered it, and only a handful of people who remain here have. Ashiya are very fond of it since it's where they once lived, or at least that's what they say. Regardless of the reason, they want to preserve it well.” “How would we go about getting in?” “Like most places, you enter with a key. One that I don't have.”Katei pointed his finger up the stairs, where a door prevented us from making it all the way up.  “I have the key for this one since it only keeps us from accessing the offices.”He walked up and inserted another key of his in the keyhole. As he'd already done twice, he turned it. Unlike previously, however, the door didn't appear to smoothly unlock. “What? It's not letting me.” “Hold on.”Sai stepped up to him, twisted the knob, and pushed the door forward. “It was open.” “O-Oh... That's strange. Sometimes this door is left open, but it's weird that it was now. Nobody has worked upstairs for two weeks.” “It's not really strange. Naomi also had the key, right? It just means that she probably opened it, or that someone did with her key. If it was you, you're not very good at remembering whether you locked a door.” “...” “I'll pointlessly ask again so you guys understand it better. Katei, you did not see anyone when you looked through the security cameras, right?” “...Correct.” “Then, once again, that's strange. It's very likely someone unlocked this door and went through it. If they wanted to hide from us, they wouldn't have done so on this floor, meaning that it's likely they went up some floors before we woke up and while you were allegedly in the security room.” “You won't stop trying to find ways to frame me, will you? I don't believe you're right. They would've known I was inside the security room and must've only gone up when they saw I'd left it.” “...”Katei was right. Sai's thoughts operated under the assumption that Katei hadn't been in the room, so he hadn't considered that simple angle. “Well, let's go up. I bet the person we're searching for is currently above us.”We began to climb up the stairs.  “Can't we take the elevator? There's a lot of stairs to get to the top, right?” “The elevator...? I'm not sure that'd be appropriate.”We all slowly stepped down. We had entirely ignored the elevator. “There shouldn't be an issue.”The elevator door was fully metallic, so we weren't able to see the inside without opening it. Next to it was the button to call it with, and nowhere did it indicate whether it was being used or on which floor it was situated. Katei called it quietly. Many seconds later, the button lit up for a second, indicating that the elevator had arrived. Then, Katei opened the door, exposing an empty and narrow interior.  “It wasn't on this floor... It took a while, so it must've been pretty high up.” “That doesn't mean anything, does it? It could've been up before today's event even started.” “You're right. Katei, do you happen to know where the elevator should've been?” “Not at all. I didn't have the night shift, and I didn't see it being used.” “It'd be good to know when it last moved.” “Doesn't this elevator bypass the door in the middle of the staircase?” “Yes, it does.” “Then what's the point of locking it...?” “I just said that it's not unusual for it to be left unlocked. In the past, when the offices were actively used, the measures were stricter. Since nothing ever happened, everyone started to be more lenient, often leaving the door unlocked.” “A similar change occurred to the elevator. Look inside.” We all peeked in. What Katei was referring to was above the floor buttons. “Keyholes? Is a key needed to make the elevator move?” “In the past, you needed the same key that opens the door to make it to floors 2 to 6 from here. That regulation was removed once people complained that it served no purpose, since the door would continuously be left open.” “However, this other keyhole is still mandatory. To reach floor 7—the attic—a special key is needed. The same key opens the door that leads up to it.” “So we'll be able to use the elevator to move freely through floors 1 to 6.” “Yes.” Isla hopped into the elevator by herself, causing Erina to gasp slightly.  “This is interesting, actually.”- “...What is?” “Well, whoever went up to hide from us used the door instead of the elevator.” “You're right. They wouldn't have had to.” “I don't think so, at least. If it's true that it should've been locked, by leaving it unlocked, they're telling us they possess the key. Naomi wouldn't do that purposely because it places suspicion on her. It's possible someone who's not a staff member unlocked the door.”- “I see what you mean. There could've been a reason why they didn't use the elevator instead.” “For example?”- “Well, if the elevator wasn't on this floor, and the culprit knew it while in a hurry, they would've gone through the door instead of waiting for the elevator to arrive.” “I suppose so.”- “It's a bit strange they didn't lock the door behind them, but there's any number of reasons for that.” “Hm. This should help us visualize the culprit's movements a bit more.” “Are we going to go up?” “Don't be impatient. We can't all go up at once.”With Katei keeping the door open, I was able to see why he'd said that. Inside the elevator was a sign indicating the number of people that could board it before the weight could prove a problem. “Only four of us can be inside at once. It's a fairly old elevator. The stairs really aren't long, so let's walk up.” “No! I wanna use the elevator.” ...We hadn't yet had an issue with Isla's behavior, so we didn't want something so trivial to put an end to that. “Sweetie, come on. We're not in the best position to demand anything.” “I wanna use the elevator... If not, I can just stay on this floor and go back to the Sekimeiya.” “...” “It's fine. We've already spent a while investigating, and it's getting old. Let's hurry the process up.” “If someone's hiding from us and we want to find them, we won't accomplish it if we stay together. The culprit has an elevator, stairs, and knowledge of the layout. Much like on this floor, they could easily make sure to avoid us.” “To speed it up and increase our chances of finding them, let's split into two groups.”- “Weren't you against that earlier?” “I'm fine with it depending on the groups. Isla and Erina will take the elevator up to the sixth floor. As long as Atsuki and Shiroya go up with them, it should be all right.” “Why us?” “To isolate the least suspicious people, of course. A problem with splitting up would be if someone could take advantage of it before we're able to thoroughly inspect this building. Katei, Akaro, and I will start with floor 2 and progressively move up until we meet you guys again.” “Okay!”- “Is that a good idea...?” “Any reason why it's a bad one?”- “It's fine by me, but we don't have to do it like this. We could use the elevator twice or simply take it to the second floor.” I looked at everyone else, and their reactions indicated indifference toward Sai's arrangement. It was true that it'd increase our speed and chances of finding the culprit, and as long as Isla's whim was satisfied, she wouldn't complain. “All right, let's go.”Sai went up the stairs and shortly disappeared from my field of vision. Akaro and Katei followed him, and I held the door Katei had kept open until then.  “...Let's go too.”Isla went in first, followed by her mother. After Shiroya had entered, I boarded it last and closed the door behind us.   “This isn't a spacious elevator. I'm surprised it's supposed to support four people.”*BGM stops* In the cramped space, Shiroya moved her finger up to the floor 6 button. Admittedly, she was right, since Isla didn't occupy the space of a grown-up and had ended up buried in the back. *Doors close and elevator starts humming* As soon as the button was pressed, the translucent secondary doors closed, and we began to slowly rise.  The elevator didn't shake at all, so we only knew we were moving because of the screechy noise the ropes above us were making. They were a quiet few seconds, and since the doors to the other floors were fully opaque, they were also dim. Ironically, I felt a vague sense of claustrophobia for the first time since we had awakened. *Elevator stops, doors open*  Once the elevator slowed down and the secondary doors allowed us to leave, I opened the door that would lead us to an unknown place.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2023 23:54
|
|
|
I feel bad for continuing to harp on the game, because I'm intrigued by the story and the mystery of what happened, but there still hasn't been a single instance of player agency, right? I sincerely hope there's some time loop or something and this is just a first run through that sets up the scene so that we can try different permutations later. I am still definitely intrigued by what will be in the office levels.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2023 04:26
|
|
|
if you're asking for player agency in terms of you the player actively making choices, there are very few and each one is essentially an immediate bad ending. this is by and large a linear story where your agency is primarily defined by taking notes and trying to figure things out before they're revealed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2023 05:01
|
|
|
I'm surprised no one brought up the possibility that the culprit could've been waiting in the offices for the smoke to clear, rather than it being their escape route. If the culprit knew about the alarm and various security features ahead of time, it strikes me as likely that their intention is to make it look like only the people trapped could be culprit.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2023 15:31
|
|
|
Update 12: Are you done? We didn't find anything. Scene: Line Art (Part 1) BGM: Anomaly  We stepped out and looked around us. A long hallway composed of calm colors extended far ahead. “...Is this really the same building?”Compared to what we'd seen downstairs, the scenery around us was more pleasant. We even felt a slight cold breeze that alleviated some of the tension we'd been accumulating.  “More bathrooms?” “Since people used to work here, there might be two on every floor.” Outside the elevator, we found ourselves in a wide corridor that only contained a few potted plants. At our right were the bathrooms and the staircase that led to floor 5.  “I suppose we should look around.” The three girls entered their bathroom while I stepped into the men's one by myself. Like the one on the crystal floor, it was spacious, but only contained a sink with a mirror, a garbage bin, and a toilet. It was easy to tell that I was the only person inside. Although a potentially dangerous culprit might've been hiding from us, I loosened up a little. Interestingly, the thought of looking through those huge floors without restriction had released some strain from my body, which allowed me to think about needs that had disappeared from my mind, like using the bathroom for its intended purpose.  Outside, I found the others waiting for me behind the door, and we went ahead to see if anything of importance awaited us nearby.  We turned left past the large hallway and were met with a narrower path whose left wall was made of glass. “What's this?” “These must be the offices. I can only see desks and computers.” Shiroya felt the handle and realized that the door wasn't locked. She easily pushed it open without making a sound and let us pass.  “There's another door in the back. Since this floor is as big as the first one, it must have a lot of space to encompass a bunch of these.”Isla walked up to the far door and opened it. “It looks the same.” We glanced through it and saw a replica of the room. It looked identical down to the last object, with the same arrangement of desks and computers. “There's another door there.” We approached it. Although the first wall was made of glass, the next two partitions were separated by plastic that heavily obscured the other side.  Through the door, we were able to see that, once again, the third section looked exactly like the first two. The exception was the lack of a door leading to a fourth. Even though the initial thought of inspecting a huge building had sounded slightly interesting, the layout made it a trivial task. “There's nothing here either.”- “Let's look around a bit. I doubt it, but we might find something.” “Yeah. Let's see.” We dispersed ourselves throughout the three large partitions, and I was left with the third one. The desks all had drawers, but upon further inspection, they didn't contain anything relevant to us. The only thing of note was that each desk contained a computer tower inside its lower, larger compartment.  I returned to the second partition. - “There are even cameras here?”  “Yeah, I saw them. They do look a bit out of place. It's probably a result of Ashiya's paranoia.”- “I'm not sure these would help them much, but it seems so.” “Maybe it's to make sure the workers here don't slack off.”Even though it had sounded like a joke, I understood she hadn't intended it as one. After all, in the second and third partitions, you couldn't be seen from outside. The wall covered the partitions' sides, and a cloudy white one kept them from seeing each other. It was a pretty cramped place, and I couldn't imagine myself working calmly with that camera pointed at me. I wasn't sure what the jobs there entailed, but from looking at the number of computers, a large amount of people must've worked at once. Adding the fact that five similar floors were supposed to exist, it felt almost excessive.  I stepped into the first partition to see Erina and Isla looking at a lit screen. Upon noticing me, they were first to speak. “I powered on this computer, but it's taking a while to boot up.”On the screen, I could see a percentage bar that had almost reached the end. I briefly worried that Ashiya would review the footage of us using the computers, but it wasn't like we were doing anything illicit. Soon, Shiroya came from the middle partition and the four of us stared at the same screen.  “...Found anything?”- “No, and I don't imagine we will.”  “I see. I haven't either.”Isla was mimicking what she'd seen Shiroya do, opening and closing the drawers. She appeared visibly sad when the last one still contained only pens and papers. - “Oh, look. I doubt we'll be able to access anything.” On the screen were two text boxes demanding a username and a password. Without them, we wouldn't be able to look at anything. “That's unfortunate.”Just in case, I tried inputting common default information, but nothing gave a positive result. - “Yeah, these won't be any use.” I gave up and straightened myself. “Let's keep going. The lower floors will probably be the same, so we'll go through them faster.” “The stairs leading to floor 5 were next to the elevator, but let's see what's on the other side first.” We walked out, Isla holding the door for us. Shiroya gave her a charming smile and helped her before Erina exited through. As soon as we turned left, we were met with something I'd seen from behind the glass.  “What's that for?” “Oh, right, I forgot about these.”Two big windows were in the wall, but as we'd been told, a shutter prevented us from seeing through them. “Yeah, they're the windows. These are the same kind of shutter as the one in the lobby.”Isla made a thinking sound. I also hadn't thought of the windows, and since they were barely visible from the first partition, their purpose must not have been to relax the workers. “I remember seeing them from outside.”- “Yes, they should be facing the front of the tower. We'd normally be able to see most of Yushibana from here.” “I knew it.”Isla approached the shutters with her hand and felt them a bit. They seemed very sturdy. “I'm not sure this would be the most viable escape route for a criminal. We're on the sixth floor, so to escape through here, you'd definitely need special help.” “Yeah. They took no risks this time.”- “Hm. It would be tough, but even this window could serve as an exit with a proper plan.”  Isla, who had been acting as if she were at home, left us behind and went to explore what looked to be another corridor. After understanding that nothing was to be done with the windows, we moved along too.  A narrower path was on the other side of the floor. However, it didn't appear to lead anywhere. “Is it a dead end?” “Oh.”Isla turned around when she realized it. As nothing else was left to be inspected, we walked back and returned to the initial hallway.   “I guess this was floor 6. Let's see if anything's different on the others.”- “We came to the conclusion that it's very likely the culprit is here, so this layout makes things easy for us.”    We arrived on floor 5 in silence. It looked very similar to the sixth, and it had the same bathrooms at our right.  We looked at them while making sure nobody could sneak past us and go a floor up. At first glance, the floor appeared to have the same structure as the previous.  I inspected one of the plants just to be safe. - “The soil in these is actually really shallow. I don't think anyone could hide something in here.” The pots themselves weren't hollow, either. Nobody could hide anything underneath them. I didn't think anyone had, but in case there was still something else going on, I wanted to have my bases covered. I couldn't actually tell if the plants were fake or not. It didn't really matter. I visualized the layout of the floors in my head as I considered how unlikely it actually was for someone to be hiding in them.  After walking farther into it, it was clear that it was almost identical. “Is every floor exactly like this?” “They probably are, but we'll have to look at them to be sure.” “Why is this place so big?” “Come on, Isla. You're bothering Shiroya and Atsuki. We need to keep moving.” “...Oh.” - “As long as someone stays in the first partition and can look through the glass, we can make sure nobody moves between the floors unseen.” “Right. One person always needs to stay out of the last two.” “All right.”Since we'd seen no stairs going down, I walked to the other side.  - “Yeah, that's what I figured. The stairs to the fourth floor are here.”  I walked back as the others entered the first partition. Once again, the four of us found ourselves in a room full of desks and computers. “I've been trying not to think about it, but what if there's someone in one of the next two rooms? What do we plan to do?”We went quiet for a bit. She's right. We've been maintaining a light-hearted attitude, but things may change drastically in an instant. We don't know what we're up against, but the truth of the matter is that we're in a dangerous situation. Perhaps we should just stay put. Without Sai around, that sounded a lot smarter. Erina'd been playing along with us, but she must've been afraid something could happen to Isla. - “I doubt they'd want to hurt us, but without Akaro, our only physical advantage is that there are four of us. ...I guess that if someone's hiding, though, nothing guarantees it's only one person.”  As our perspective on the situation shifted over a single comment, I slowly moved toward the door in front of me. Even though those walls weren't transparent, they let light through. If someone were right next to them, we'd see a vague outline of them. In a slightly tense manner, I placed my hand on the handle and slowly opened the door.  - “...I don't see anybody. I'll check the last one.” Shiroya kept the door open so that my voice could still reach the first partition. I grabbed the next handle and pushed the door forward.  - “It's empty too.” I loosened my grip and walked back to the others. It seemed nobody had been on floor 5 either.  “Should we also look around here?” “We probably won't find anything, but I think we should.”- “I agree. We're not only looking for people. In the case the culprit wanted to get rid of something like they probably did with the suitcase, they wouldn't have had many places to do so.” “That's true. The crystal floor has a simple layout, but these are even worse. If you wanted to hide something here, you'd only have these drawers.”- “That's what I mean. Someone was likely here since that door at the stairs was unlocked, so let's see if we can find something.” Isla took that as her cue to start opening all the drawers. Again, I went to the third partition while Shiroya stayed in the middle one.  Opening every drawer was all I could do. There wasn't anything under the desks that could hide something, and the floor was nothing but a mess of cables. In less than two minutes, I could be sure that nothing of importance existed in that section of floor 5. I left it to find Shiroya about to be done with hers.  - “Nothing, I imagine?” “Yeah. I looked at some of these papers, but I don't think they have anything to tell us. Some were financial reports, but others I didn't understand at all.”- “That's about what I saw on the other floor. I tried not to look at them much since a camera was right behind me.”  “Oh, yeah. They'll probably look through the footage to make sure nothing strange happened.”She apologized, facing the camera, before opening the door to the first partition. Perhaps the situation had forced her to start moving back to her usual persona in a similar way I felt it was affecting me. I smiled at her and went through the door she'd opened, calmed by the thought my worries about her had been imagined.  “Are you done? We didn't find anything.” “Neither did we.” “We can move on, then. If the other group went at the same pace, we should find them on the next floor.”*BGM Stops*  We were about to leave when a sound alerted me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2023 17:32
|
|
|
I’m enjoying this so far. People might bemoan the lack of player agency but early choices in VNs seem entirely arbitrary anyway. Randomly pick which location to visit, just as a mechanism to shuttle you onto different routes... but you have to do every route anyway so it doesn’t even matter. That doesn’t feel like a meaningful choice to me. “Pure text but with a test at the end” is a viable alternative format IMO. At least for a mystery story. I also like the MC speculating wildly, but then I’m the kind of broken brained lunatics who likes reading speculation in threads. Couple of thoughts: VNs are waaaay too wordy, especially in their prologues. Update 1 you could truncate by at least half, without cutting *anything* of value, though the the pace here picks up a lot after the first couple of updates. The summary feature kind of highlights this though - super long update and then the summary is “we went to look at a gem but got knocked unconscious by black smoke”. There’s other VNs with interesting setups that I bounce off because they expend 8000 words on literally nothing happening. That said, contained in update 1 is the interesting point that he describes the black smoke as having a “*familiar* putrid smell” and there’s the line “I couldn't believe it was happening again.” Which seems to suggest he’s encountered this black smoke before. Which seems particularly notable. Another update has a line saying that he doesn’t suffer from memory loss or split personality, which I interpret as the game saying that we don’t know have to worry about having an unreliable narrator and that the MC won’t be secretly doing things without the game saying so. That doesn’t mean he has no secrets or doesn’t know more than he lets on, just that he isn’t providing a false account of what’s currently happening. We definitely have a very incomplete understanding of what happened before the game started though. A precious gem that’s only stable at low temperatures doesn’t really make much sense to me. Firstly because “yo, this poo poo will melt really easily” seems like it undermines its value. If I had to spend extreme money on a shiny rock then I’d want something with enduring value, rather than something that will immediately decompose the moment I take it out of the fridge. Appearance and rarity are big factors in value, sure, but so is resilience. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that diamonds are both very tough and very precious. And whilst gold is soft, it’s also very chemically inert so its softness just makes it malleable rather than making it easy to destroy. Secondly, the temperature restriction makes it impossible to do anything with it which again undermines value. Thirdly aren’t most gemstones made when molten rock is cooled to ambient temperature in a high pressure environment. I’m not a gemstone expert and I guess it doesn’t really matter but it seemed odd. Definitely you can make shiny crystals by cooling a solution to low temperatures but not sure they’d be labelled as gems and it’s hard to see how that process would naturally occur. Slight aside: I didn’t really get on with Umineko. I read the manga adaptation of the first route (not sure that’s the most accurate description but you probably get what I mean anyway). And it just seemed like “bullshit happens, everyone dies, the end”. Maybe that wasn’t the best format for it (but manga seemed to resolve the 12000 words about nothing issue at least), and maybe it takes more time to find its feet but I wasn’t really liking the characters either. People might complain about the characters here just being Information Dispensers but I kind of prefer it over characters having weird annoying gimmicks. Speculation: Really expecting Shiroya to have some dark secret. Childhood friend characters have a 90% chance of being evil in things like this, and she has some grudge against the Ashiya family and the way Atsuki rules her out makes me more doubtful of her. Also she kind of seems like a pointless character right now. If you deleted every mention of Shiroya, I don’t think it would change the story so far. So some reveal would make her presence a lot more meaningful. Possibly Atsuki already knows it. Also buried in that first update are a few lines that really make it sound like the Ashiya family screwed them over just prior to the start of the game and together they’re plotting some kind of revenge. “I'd always thought I'd be quick at adapting to sudden changes, but I'd recently realized how mistaken I'd been. Still unable to process everything, my brain kept struggling to accept that the previous few days had really happened.“ “That was why we had never entered it, and on top of our more recent circumstances, I thought Shiroya might've been experiencing a feeling of betrayal for simply being there.“ “The reason why we were inside wasn't one I could easily put into words.” “The reason we had come to the tower wasn't anything as simple as curiosity.“ Some lines like that I could wave away as trying to be mysterious and foreboding, but when it talks about recent circumstances and the last few days I think there has to be a deeper meaning behind that. I realise I’m picking out a lot of stuff from update 1 but still I think you could discard half of it and lose nothing of value. Possibly the plodding nothingness is deliberate to try to disguise the notable lines. I think Naomi is (mostly) innocent. Again maybe kind of meta reasoning, but a Naomi mastermind reveal sounds like the least satisfying resolution to all of this. “Yes it’s me, the person everyone was suspicious of right from the start and who spent the entire time off screen.” I say “mostly innocent” because it feels like there’s at least 2 different factions trying to pull off some kind of heist here, so it’s possible for someone to have secrets whilst having very little responsibility for what just happened. I’m not buying the “lol it was a malfunction” explanation for why the alarm went off. The Ashiya family has set up this elaborate trap for Xyn with this super secret security system that their own staff aren’t fully aware of... and we’re supposed to believe that it just doesn’t work? Seems more likely that it had some extra trigger mechanisms that they didn’t know about rather than it being broken. And seeing as it trapped everybody inside, sort of feels like it’s working as intended. Actually come to think of it, the most plausible explanation I can think for the black smoke is that it’s part of the security system. It just seems way easier for a building to pump gas into target rooms and hallways than for a criminal gang to smuggle a bunch of gas canisters past a bunch of guards and then deploy them in 4 separate locations all completely undetected. Might also tie in with Atsuki’s prior experience with the black smoke and his history with Ashiya. Sai is way too invested in playing detective. Clearly he finds it fun, but he’s also getting into fruitless arguments because of it so it doesn’t seem like he’s driven purely by amusement. Possibly some teen detective or he has some connection to the Ashiya family? Which might also explain he has little regard for their rules, if he’s expecting a lot of latitude. Also possible that he’s just kind of crazy. Also he was keeping tabs on people even before any kind of incident occurred, so he doesn’t seem like just an ordinary visitor.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2023 17:59
|
|
|
Am I seeing things or do half the characters have smudges on their face?
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2023 03:36
|
|
|
Yeah, they haven't cleaned up the toxic smoke smudges yet. The jewel requiring to be kept cool is interesting too, I can't recall any semi common mineral with that sort of requirement and it's not really a surprise, at geological scales climates change pretty quickly and it'd be damaged quite easily after being surfaced (which we'll have to assume is a necessary component of the damaging effect, since otherwise its formation would be fraught) unless it was only surfaced extremely high. So it's likely a lie about it, or an interesting synthetic jewel.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2023 04:20
|
|
|
Elite posted:I think Naomi is (mostly) innocent. Again maybe kind of meta reasoning, but a Naomi mastermind reveal sounds like the least satisfying resolution to all of this. “Yes it’s me, the person everyone was suspicious of right from the start and who spent the entire time off screen.” I say “mostly innocent” because it feels like there’s at least 2 different factions trying to pull off some kind of heist here, so it’s possible for someone to have secrets whilst having very little responsibility for what just happened. Maybe I've just played too many of the "everyone gets murdered" type of mystery VNs, but there's been such a complete absence of evidence of anyone else moving around the building doing things that I'm wondering if she's even still alive.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2023 06:49
|
|
|
Ghost Car posted:Maybe I've just played too many of the "everyone gets murdered" type of mystery VNs, but there's been such a complete absence of evidence of anyone else moving around the building doing things that I'm wondering if she's even still alive. Yeah this is where I'm at, I know part of it is probably an unavoidable aspect of the LP format but the last few updates have felt like they're just covering people wandering through an empty building and arguing past each other while nothing happens - so I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop at some point. Eventually!
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2023 06:52
|
|
|
I will note that "No player agency" is not, in fact, a necessary component of a linear VN. For a simple example, just look at Phoenix wright, who is completely linear, but at any given point the player has a variety of ways of interacting with the game, from straight plowing through, to examining everything 4 times in a row. This, is a book which is of course, acceptable (Visual Novel, yes) but does make thread participation quite difficult, since usually it's the choices that prompt discussion.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2023 09:19
|
|
|
Elite posted:Slight aside: I didn’t really get on with Umineko. I read the manga adaptation of the first route (not sure that’s the most accurate description but you probably get what I mean anyway). And it just seemed like “bullshit happens, everyone dies, the end”. That is actually the correct reading of episode 1. You later get the information that allows you to puzzle out what happened (and the final episodes spell it out), but you're supposed to end this episode feeling like a lot of confusing bullshit happened that's impossible to understand. You end the final episode feeling like every gimmick the characters had was actually a deep hint towards the story's solution. Yes, even that one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2023 10:41
|
|
|
Update 13: Because I was told! Scene: Line Art (Part 2) BGM: Looming  We were about to leave when a sound alerted me. A very faint but deep noise that lasted almost two seconds was very vaguely heard from where we were. Two of us visibly reacted at the reminder that our situation was very uncertain, and having effortlessly deemed two full floors as harmless might've amplified the impact a single light noise had on us. Isla, however, appeared unfazed. Perhaps ignorance was bliss, but it seemed like she had no concerns whatsoever. “You guys heard that, right?” “Hm? I didn't hear anything.” “I-I'm not sure I did. What was it?”- “I don't know, but I heard it too. It was quiet, but I think it came from this floor.” Shiroya and Erina looked a bit tense and focused their hearing in case something could be heard again. - “...It must've been the others.”  I opened the door. I wanted the initial inspection to finally end, to permanently release the stress I'd been building knowing that a hiding culprit could've been anywhere. I realized Erina and Shiroya were coming along. We only had two directions to choose, and I hadn't made out the origin of the sound. However, since the right path led to floor 6, it was fair to assume it had come from the left. Erina quickly checked the right hallway and indicated that she hadn't seen anything. As I reached the end of the glass that Isla was looking at me through, I peeked into the next corridor.  - “...I don't see anything.” Shiroya looked too and saw the completely empty path. “It might've come from floor 4.”- “Possibly. I couldn't tell.”  We entered the first partition again, where Isla was calmly sitting on a rotating chair and staring at our distressed faces. “Do we keep going...?”- ”Yes. We need to ask the others what that sound was.” All of us felt it appropriate to exhale. However, Isla disagreed. “You don't need to look so worried. Nothing bad will happen.” “...I would always have imagined I'd be the one saying that in a time like this…” “Believe me. There's no reason to be scared.”- “Any particular reason you say that?” “Hm... I know nothing will happen. We just need to wait until we can leave.” I saw Shiroya staring at her with skepticism. She knew optimism was great when it hadn't failed you yet. “You're probably right. We only got caught up in an inconvenient situation.” “Yeah. We'll be back home in just a few hours, so let's go back down already.” “But I'm being serious. We don't need to search for any hidden person. There's no one here.”- “We're searching precisely to know that for sure.” “I'm already telling you. These floors are a lot more boring than the crystal floor, so we don't need to waste our time like this.”‘Waste our time’... If I had intended to take her seriously, I couldn't have helped but laugh.  - “So you know the result of a search that hasn't finished?” “Yes!”- “*sigh*” Shiroya's and Erina's expressions told me that arguing would lead us nowhere. But I was stubborn and slightly curious about her attitude. - “How can you possibly know that?” “Because I was told!”...My brain processed that line as another thoughtless remark she had made up to justify her claims. Only after a few seconds of silence did I understand what she'd said. - “What do you mean? ...Who told you?” “My friend.” “Not again... Don't take her seriously. She's been acting like this lately.” “What do you mean? Maybe she's a bit careless, but she's a kid. I don't think it's anything strange.” “I don't just mean the lies. Her behavior has been changing recently…” “In what way?”Isla, who was right there, responded with a face full of disagreement. “Well... I've talked to her a bit about this. I don't know why, but a few weeks ago she started talking about this friend of hers.”Again, Isla breathed in a sad manner, as if she were being ridiculed unfairly.  “She just doesn't wanna believe me, but I know I'm right. I only tried to make you feel better…”- “What kind of friend do you mean? Who are they?” “I can't tell you that. It's our secret.” “See, this is what she says. Recently, she started constantly referencing this intangible friend of hers. At first, I was happy to hear her talking about a friend since the teachers at her school usually tell me that she's more on the lonely side. She never really talked about her friends until now.” “But she quickly made it sound as if she was always with them and kept explaining to me things that she'd been told. I knew she had made it all up because I never saw her with anyone, and the things she'd presumably been told were all things that she'd said before or things I felt she would say.” “‘We watched my favorite movie together, and it was her favorite too!’ and ‘She went to the aquarium last month, just like us!’ You see what I mean?” “So she's a girl too?” “Yes. That's the only thing we agreed we could say.” “I'd probably be taking it better if it were the only thing that changed, but she also started to behave differently in other ways. She frequently stopped listening to what I told her to do, spent less time with me, and one day I found out that she hadn't gone to school because she "hadn't felt like it". I really don't know what's gotten into her.” “An imaginary friend at her age isn't too strange, but it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, especially if it comes with so many more changes.” “...Why won't you believe me? She is real, I keep telling you…” “...” “I don't think you should act against it, right? Let her have fun with her friend.”- “So she told you that everything would be fine and that we'd make it out safely, right?” “Yes.” “I believe you. There's nothing wrong with what you're saying.” “Thank you, Tanya.” “So, how is she handling this? Did she like the Sekimeiya?” “...”Isla looked confused, as if she'd been betrayed by the first person who'd accepted her. “No, of course not... She's not here, right?” “O-Oh, no, I suppose not.” “She told me that we would make it out safely before we came to the tower.”- “What do you mean to say...? What exactly did she tell you?” “You shouldn't listen to her. Don't you see this isn't something to take seriously? I've tried it, but it's pointless.” “Hm... She told me that something would happen in the tower, but not to worry. She said that if we stayed calm in one place, nobody would be hurt. And she promised I'd be able to see and touch the Sekimeiya, so she was right, wasn't she?” ...Before answering, I kept trying to make sense of such a confusing bunch of words. However, I started to think that her story could be seen in a completely different way—a much more ominous one. “You're not telling the truth, right? You never lied up until a month ago. What happened?” “Do you mean telling us details about this person? How old is she, for example?” “I won't tell you anything. That's what we promised…”- “Erina, you said she's an honest kid. Do you think there's a chance she's telling the truth?” “I understand you'd think that, but no. I'm sure that she's lying. She always makes it sound as if her friend lives with us, but of course, I know that's not possible. We live alone.”- “Isla, we're talking about a human person, right?” “Yes. Animals can't talk.”- “R-Right. You got me there.”  She was clearly unhappy with our reactions, but we had no other way to respond to what she was saying. Obviously, no friend would appear out of nowhere and start living with you. If that was what Isla claimed, then I agreed with Erina's conclusion. - “So, what did she tell you about today's incident? Any more details?” “Why would I tell you if you won't believe me? She couldn't come, so she said that even though she didn't know how it would end or how long we'd stay here for, she'd wait for me at home.” “She didn't know how it would end? What does that mean? And why couldn't she come?” “She can't see the future. She was right about a lot of stuff, so I trusted her. And today, she couldn't come here because I was supposed to.” “You were supposed to? What does that even mean?” “I was supposed to come here, right? We planned this since the Sekimeiya was announced, and I was really excited, so you even let me skip today's classes. If she had come, you would've seen her, so that's why she couldn't.” “All right, then. I apologize for putting a damper on your fun.” “Don't worry about that. What matters is that nobody else is here. We don't really need to keep searching.”- “Is that something your friend mentioned? Did she tell you the people who would get trapped?” “...Maybe. I'm not really sure if I should tell you, but she didn't say a lot about it.”- “It might be helpful, so we'd appreciate it.” “Well... She didn't tell me the names of everyone, but she did say that only seven people would get trapped, and that if we kept calm, nothing bad would happen.” “Seven people? But Naomi must also be here.” “Hm... She wanted to be helpful, so she told me as much as she could. She said it'd be me, Mom, three boys, and two girls. ...And that they wouldn't be bad people.” “Come on, Isla. How do you intend to say she knew that?” “She's very smart. A lot smarter than me. But she was wrong here, so I think I might not be remembering right…”- “Right. According to her, three men and four women would end up trapped. As things are right now, it's four men and three women, not counting Naomi.” “That's true, see? If she was wrong about this, she might've been wrong when she said that nobody else would get trapped.” “But, no... That's not right. I might be wrong about the number of boys and girls, but I'm sure she said that only seven people would stay.” “Listen, we can't stop searching because of what someone told you before we came here. She couldn't have known anything. Don't you get it?” “...But she was right. We ended up trapped, and it's seven of us. She even said that all the windows would lock down.”- “I'm very confused about this. Are you just blatantly lying to us? Because only a very select number of people would've known about the alarm's existence. If she truly said that, could it be that your friend works here?” “No, that's impossible. I won't say anything else or I might put her in danger... You can believe what I said if you want.” Standing up from the chair, Isla reached for the door and left. Despite all she'd said, we still saw leaving her alone as dangerous, so we followed her toward the fourth floor.  What the hell was all of that? There really are only two options. Either Isla is lying, or someone who knew the attack would happen has been in contact with her. I'm not sure I want to believe her, but I think it's much more likely that the first option is correct. Creating an imaginary friend and making up all sorts of lies and excuses to justify their existence isn't uncommon behavior. But some things she said are really strange… If she was trying to justify her friend's existence, why would she purposely list out the number of men and women incorrectly? And given how likely it is for Naomi to still be here, why would she claim otherwise? Wouldn't finding Naomi disprove her friend?  If someone told Isla about the alarm, they had to work here. It's been continuously told to us that very few people knew about it. I guess another possibility is that Xyn found out about the alarm and its features. Isla did say that her friend doesn't work here. Now the big question: why would Xyn make contact with Isla and tell her all that? What's there to gain, and why Isla? There's no way her friend lives with them like she said. That would mean that Xyn instructed her to lie about her friend's identity so that the actual person couldn't be found. But why the hell would they let her speak about it at all instead of telling her to keep fully quiet?  Isla told us that she promised her friend not to reveal information about her, but it didn't seem like they'd agreed not to reveal information about today's incident. I have no idea what anyone would have to gain by telling Isla about any of this, but if their intention was to manipulate her actions in some way, there has to be a very important reason… One last thing is that Isla's friend didn't know how things would end. This appears to back up Sai's theory: the plan isn't over yet. However, she also said that she didn't know how long we'd stay here for. Twelve hours is the maximum time... Is it possible that depending on how some events play out, we could leave earlier? Incidentally, her friend told her that everything would be fine if we stayed put somewhere. Could it be that Xyn doesn't want us to search around the building? I'm not sure how I should be handling it since it didn't seem as if she was instructed to tell us any of this. She just mentioned it out of honest concern after seeing how worried we were. If none of her actions were instructed and she was only given details, I can't think of a single reason why Xyn would do such a seemingly pointless and risky thing.  If her friend is an actual person who knew this incident would occur, it follows they knew she would end up involved in it.  Since I can't think of why Xyn would do it, the smallest thing I can construct has, once again, Katei as the focus. The only things Isla revealed about her friend's identity were her gender and the fact that they don't work in this building. I've been thinking of Katei as the core suspect, so it's easy to pin him as the identity behind Isla's friend. If he instructed Isla to make sure not to reveal his identity, she would've called her friend a girl, and the one thing she would've denied would've been them working in the tower. I'm not sure how much credit I should give Isla or if I'm going off too many branches, but even though she's a kid, she surely should be able to bring things up without making it evident she'd been waiting for a good moment. I have no idea what any of this accomplishes, but since only some Ashiya workers should've known about the alarm's existence, only them or an attacker with inside information could've been in contact with Isla. Reasons aside, an Ashiya employee could have been relaying information to her. Two happen to come to mind, one being a man, and the other a woman.  In the end, though, I went back to thinking that the most likely possibility was that Isla had made everything up. Maybe she had randomly thought of mentioning the number of men and women but had purposely said them incorrectly as an unusual thing she would've had no reason to make up. Maybe she'd intended to say it the right way but had quickly realized that she miscounted. ...The whole thing had truly messed with me, and I kept trying to make sense of it until we reached the fourth floor.  It appeared desolate as soon as we arrived. The chances of finding people increased with each floor, so with a bit of precaution, we moved toward the partitions. “Is the other group not here yet?”The first partition looked empty. Once again, we saw the same layout as the other floors. - “Maybe they found something. I'd think they would've already arrived here.”  I repeated the earlier process and quickly deemed the three partitions empty. *BGM Stops* Next were the two bathrooms. However, before we headed to them, I thought I noticed another sound, just as faint as the last.  It was easy to pinpoint its origin. I peeked into the right corridor and saw two human figures standing next to the staircase. “Where's Katei?”
AFancyQuestionMark fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Mar 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2023 13:07
|
|
|
Ah, of course. It's Beatrice, uu~
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2023 13:54
|
|
|
Nissin Cup Nudist posted:plot twist: The 10 yo kid is the real mastermind behind everything I was joking, ok
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2023 00:49
|
|
|
Update 14: So, Naomi really was here. Scene: Line Art (Part 3) BGM: Duo  “Where's Katei?”As Isla pointed out, only Sai and Akaro were there. As soon as they noticed us, they stopped talking and gestured at us to come over.  “How did things go? Anything notable?” “Nothing. Are the other two floors like this one?” “Exactly the same. They only contain three big rooms full of offices.”- “...Where did Katei go? Why is he not with you?” “Well, it's not the easiest thing to explain.” “It is. Naomi showed up and requested to talk to him privately.” “...Huh? Where was she?” “It can't be, though. Naomi shouldn't be here.” “It's time to stop, Isla. Don't keep going when it's clear you were wrong.” “Why shouldn't she? We were about to move up to this floor when Naomi came from the second. I'm positive she came from the stairs.”- “From the stairs? Shouldn't you guys have inspected floor 2?” “We did. It's very possible she was on the crystal floor since there was no place to hide on the second one.” “And she voluntarily appeared to talk to Katei?” “Pretty much. It looked like she wanted to talk to Akaro first, but as soon as she saw Katei, she forgot about him.” “...Well, she approached me first because I was closer to the stairs. Then they went down to talk.” “Yes. We finished up floor 3 and have been waiting here since we looked at the two bathrooms. They left about fifteen minutes ago.”- “Did you not try to follow them? What did they want to talk about?” “Naomi went ahead and asked us not to follow them, so, unfortunately, I had to abandon my plan of tagging along. Realistically, if they made sure to be alone, we couldn't have done anything to eavesdrop without being noticed. The quarters here are pretty tight.” “It sounded like they wanted to talk about confidential matters. When I first saw Naomi, I got really surprised, but her face must've looked even more distressed than mine. She looked preoccupied and determined at the same time—that's how I'd define her when she was insisting to talk to Katei privately.”- “I see…” “We were debating the contents of their talk just now. I gave Akaro the rundown regarding Katei, and he really hadn't considered anything.” “I still think you're overthinking a few things, but I can't deny they're the two most suspicious people. Sai really thinks they're up to no good.” “Am I being unreasonable? If I was wrong, they would've told us the main gist of it. Naomi might not have been with us the whole time, but she must've been conscious of the situation and our perception of her. But she barely acknowledged us.”- “I'm still trying to process everything. So, Naomi really was here. This means that the most likely scenario is that she was the one to leave the suitcase downstairs, right?”  “Yes. She might not have been aware of how wary we were of her and openly showed up to talk with the other main suspect. Katei also looked surprised, so perhaps he thought she should've remained hidden. Regardless, it's safe to assume they're now talking about their plan.” “You should trust them a bit more... Since the two of them work here, I think it's very possible they're talking about Ashiya matters.” “Tell me, then. Why did Naomi hide from us? Why did she appear out of nowhere and didn't even try to explain anything? Her actions are strange even if she's on the culprit's side, but her face wasn't the one of someone who suddenly got trapped and looked for people for an entire hour.” “Her perspective might've been different from ours, being an Ashiya employee that's aware of Xyn's attacks.” “And I acknowledge that possibility. Her actions simply make it unlikely.” “We'll have to wait for them to come back. I'm sure they'll clarify all of this.” “Yeah. We decided to stay here to make sure they couldn't escape, but we were also waiting for you four.” - “If there are more than two of us, we can split ourselves through the first three floors while someone stays here to make sure they're confined below.” “Wouldn't they be able to use the elevator?” “Yes, but we would know. I meant to ask you guys about that. A few minutes ago, after Katei and Naomi left, we heard the elevator moving through our floor. Even though we were next to it, we weren't able to determine the direction it was going to.” “But since you had gone to the sixth floor, it could only have been going down. We only heard it once.”- “Oh, so that was the elevator.” That made sense. It had been a deep noise that had lingered for a bit. Since it had been moving, the exact position and floor it had come from hadn't been easily distinguishable.  “As I thought, none of you used it. That's strange, right?” “We're sure it was the elevator because it made the same noise we heard when you used it on the lowest floor. Even if you'd decided to go back down for some reason, we found it appropriate to stay here.”- “Are you sure it only moved one more time?” “Yeah, we were right next to it and only heard it once. That's why, if Katei and Naomi use it, we'll know. We could even call it and keep the door open. That way, they wouldn't be able to use it at all.”- “Right, that's what I thought you'd suggest.” “I stayed here for another reason too, which is why we didn't call it here and do that immediately. The sound might make it possible to anticipate the elevator. We might be quick enough to press the button before it goes past us. This would trap them inside it, and we could open the door before they could start moving again.”- “I see. The sound from earlier doesn't make much sense, though. We left the elevator on floor 6 and heard it moving on floor 5. As you said, it could only have been going down.” “Yeah, I don't get it. By floor 5, we knew nobody could've been above us.” “Is it possible someone sneaked past you while you investigated? If all of you were inside the partitions without looking through the glass, it could've happened.” “I really don't think so. I stayed in front for the most part, and I really doubt I missed anyone.” “Well, if you didn't, then someone below us could've called it, and what we heard was the empty elevator.” “Huh? It must've been either Katei or Naomi, so if you didn't hear it again, they must've called it to then not use it.” “Right. Maybe they wanted it easily available on floor 1 if they needed to use it.” We began to hear footsteps in the distance. We all quieted down at the same time, straining to hear if we'd imagined it. They didn't stop. The sound became more and more perceptible until it was clear that only one pair of legs was approaching. “Let's see what's up.”We stared at the staircase, where the sound was coming from, until Katei's white hair peeked from below.  When he saw all of us, he looked up with a plain face and stopped moving without making it all the way up. “Where's Naomi?” “...We went to the crystal floor, but she didn't want to come back.” “Why not?”Sai's immediate reaction threw Katei off, and he took a few seconds to answer.  During that time, he looked at the rest of us. It might've been just my impression, but it felt like he particularly fixed his eyes on me. “She didn't explain it. I asked her to come since I knew I'd be highly suspected otherwise, but she refused. She left the room where we were, and I stayed there a few more minutes, sorting my thoughts out before returning here.” “What did you talk about?” “About the incident, of course. It surprised me a bit, but her intention was to clear her name. She told me she hadn't done anything.” “That was what she wanted to talk to you about privately?” “Yes. I didn't believe her, though.” “...You didn't?” “No. Her words sounded forced, as if she was trying to cover herself up with lies. I know you've been suspecting me, but since I know I'm innocent, my main suspicions were directed to Naomi from the beginning.” “She saw her explanations weren't working and refused to appear before you all. She must've tried her luck with me because we've worked together for a long time.” “So, she only wanted to convince you?” “Yes. I don't know why, though. Even if she'd achieved that, it's not like she could've convinced the police. Hearing her justifications made me think even more that she is in some way involved in this. Even though she ran away, I didn't try to find her immediately, since I figured there was no way she could keep hiding. She still has to be somewhere on the crystal floor.”- “Out of curiosity, did you ever call the elevator?” “The elevator? No. Why?” “We heard it moving down, so if it wasn't you, Naomi might've called it. It didn't go up again, though.” “I see... So she's definitely still under us.” “Regardless, what did Naomi tell you? What was it that made you suspect her even harder?” “...She spat out nothing but inconsistencies. She said that she'd been trying to find help since waking up. She couldn't answer why she'd gone up to the office floors instead of aiding Erina's group or staying with everyone in the event room.” “She tried to make me believe that she'd been searching for people until now, and that, coincidentally, she hadn't found us yet. There was no way I could have believed that.” “According to her, she had nothing to do with the power outage or the suitcase. She said she didn't see the suitcase the first time she went up, but that it was there when she came back down.” “...I assume you didn't find anyone, naturally.” “Right.” “Then that has to settle it. If nobody else is here, only she could've left the suitcase in hallway C. She almost broke down as she thought of more ways to explain herself. You'll see when we find her.” “By the way, when the elevator moved, couldn't it have been the higher group?” “Us? No. We didn't use it again.” “...Is that so? And you didn't get separated?”Again, he said that while looking directly at me. “...No. We stayed together until now.” “Are you sure?”- “Why are you being so insistent? Do you have a reason to think we split up?” “Oh, no, I don't think so. Forgive me, Atsuki.”- “...”  What the hell was up with him? That had sounded like a taunt without having felt like one. His behavior toward me had changed in some way. I didn't know the reason, but it felt like he was trying to incite me to say something. “I'm sure they didn't split up. The four of them came from floor 5, and nobody could've gone past us while we were investigating floors 2 and 3.” “...All right, then.”As if we were all conspiring against him, he turned around and stopped moving. I was a bit puzzled, trying to understand how to interpret his new attitude. “Well, we will always be able to check the security footage once that's fixed. For now, we should make sure to find Naomi, I'd say.”Implying one more time that there was more to our actions than we'd let on, he breathed slowly and started to go back down without turning around.  “Someone should stay here in case Naomi tries to go up. The rest of us will split downstairs to make sure she's found. Another person will also be needed to stay on floor 2 to make sure she doesn't intend to pointlessly go hide there. Three will be enough to inspect the whole first floor. One person will stay in the lobby, the other in hallway C, and the last person will check every room in both hallways. She will not escape.” “The person at the lobby will look through hallway B, and the one at hallway C will look through hallway A. This time, Naomi won't be able to cross between hallways. Let's go. I'll stay in the lobby and check the mechanical room.” “...All right. That doesn't sound bad to me.” “I'll look through the rooms. I think I should be the one to do that.” “Isla and I will stay here since only four people are needed. We'll keep watch at the elevator.” “No! I'll look through the rooms too!” “Be a bit cooperative, Isla. I think staying here would be better for everyone.” As if she hadn't heard her mother, Isla ran down the stairs. Instead of trying to convince her, the others thought it better to follow behind. Shiroya, Sai, and I were the ones without an assigned position, which left us unaware of what to do. “It's not ideal, but I'll quickly check through floors 3 and 2 with Akaro's help and then stay in hallway C. You two make sure the elevator doesn't let Naomi escape.”Without waiting for a reply, Sai left both of us on the fourth floor, all by ourselves.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2023 18:32
|
|
|
Aw, no murders after all.  It's interesting that, assuming Isla's friend is real and giving accurate information, the heist plan involved seven of these eight people being trapped. I wonder (1) what relevance these specific people had to the plan and (2) which of the men wasn't supposed to be there. The PC and Akaro both came together with one or more of the women, so probably not them. I do buy the theory mentioned earlier in the thread that there were two or more plans in motion to steal the Sekimeiya and Katei was behind one of them, but not the one that's still in motion, so it would make sense if the other party planning a heist didn't know he'd be there.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2023 21:11
|
|
|
It's great to see a thread for this game. I stumbled on it at the start of the week and I've been hooked since. It's really refreshing to have a main character who's actually really smart and thinks up possibilities that even I don't sometimes. The parallels to Umineko are there in this game but Battler really could be frustratingly clueless a lot of the time. I also love how focused it is on the mystery and how fast-paced it is, relative to other visual novels. I'm much farther ahead but luckily this game has a cool notes feature that lets you record your thoughts as you play so my notes here are that a) I don't believe that Sai would just let an outed liar like Katei have a private chat with Naomi given how suspicious both of them are, b) It's suspicious that we don't actually see Naomi and c) Katei's story seems like total bullshit. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Mar 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2023 21:47
|
|
|
Reintroducing Lady Not Appearing In This Story. Yes, we met Naomi. No you can’t talk to her. She goes to another museum, you won’t know her. Also I get parallel universe vibes from Isla’s friend. Her friend seems to roughly know what will happen but gets some massive obvious things bizarrely wrong. The most obvious ways for someone to know the outcome of unexpected events that haven’t yet happened: 1) They can see the future. But Isla directly says that her friend can’t do this. 2) They’ve travelled back in time. 3) They’re the one enacting the scheme. But why tell a child about it ahead of time? 4) They’re from a parallel universe where the same events occurred slightly earlier 5) They’re some AI super-intelligence secretly spying on everyone, with the ability to predict everything that will happen My instincts lean towards 4 because that has the most potential to get something mostly right, but get a huge critical detail hilariously wrong. And depending on the rules of time travel you believe in there might not be much distinction between 2 and 4 anyway. Also keeping details about her friend’s identity a secret seems kind of pointless, unless it’s someone we already know. “Her name is Sarah, she has purple hair and likes ponies” That means nothing because nobody matches those criteria and there’s no cast of supporting characters that could secretly be her informant. We’re told it’s a human person, a girl, and they don’t work in this building... which sort of rules out almost everybody and makes me think it’s an alternate version of one of the characters we already know. Presumably it’s alternative Isla herself based on: a) Isla’s inclination towards trusting her b) high degree of similarity between Isla and her friend (same favourite movie, visiting the same locations, saying similar things etc) c) knowledge of Isla’s life d) why they want to hang out with Isla in the first place That’s the vibe I get anyway. Might be laughably wrong. That Katei and Naomi know each other proves that Katei isn’t an imposter. But he 100% wasn’t in the security room when he said he was, so he was definitely up to something. Also I agree that it doesn’t make sense for Sai to let Katei and Naomi have a private chat. Sai was adamant about grouping with Katei to keep an eye on him, then just gives him free reign to plot things out with Prime Suspect #2 (from his perspective). ????
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2023 00:27
|
|
|
I have spent all day reading and catching up on this thread and wow I can't believe it took right up until the latest update for anything to actually happen.  I'll admit the initial mystery here has me intrigued but the pacing could be a lot better here.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2023 03:41
|
|
|
There is also a possibility that someone is trans or lying about their gender and the "friend" uses assigned or covered up instead, with the obvious suspects being protag and Sai, with isla being a potential third.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2023 07:54
|
|
|
Update 15: It's gone! Scene: Ring Chain (Part 1)  - “All right then. Here we are.”  “...Hopefully they can find her and clear everything up.”- “I can't imagine Naomi hiding from them unless she knows about some secret spot.” “Yeah. It won't take very long either.”- “I'm curious to see what'll happen. It's unfortunate she appeared while we weren't there. But it's very likely she actually did appear since the three of them would have no reason to lie together.” “Were you thinking that maybe Naomi had never shown up?”- “No, not really. I just couldn't take it completely seriously since we hadn't seen her.” “You thought Katei was lying to us earlier, right? Have you changed your mind?”Thinking back on what Katei had just said... I wasn't sure how to approach it.  - “I don't know. Honestly, everything Katei said regarding Naomi just now sounded very questionable, but it seemed like he really wanted us to find her. You heard how determined he sounded. I'm not sure he'd lie about what Naomi told him to then make us find her.” “So it's likely it was all the truth.”- “I'm really not sure. Anyway, how are you holding up? Sorry, I've just been trying to think about—”  BGM: Heal We were both startled. Though louder and clearer, the same sound we'd heard earlier repeated. - “She took the elevator...!” “Why would she run away?” I recalled what Sai had said too late. We weren't close enough to stop it on the fourth floor. Trying to avoid wasting time, we ran toward the other side to arrive at her destination before we missed her. In our defense, we'd heard the sound when the elevator had been about to pass us by, so stopping it in time wouldn't have been possible.  “We should've just kept it open...! I didn't think she would actually go up!”- “And I didn't think fast enough, drat it! Sai just wanted us to keep them in place.”  Shiroya ran behind me. I wanted to tell her to slow down and let me go by myself, but it would've been inconsiderate. If I thought going up was dangerous, I would've tried to make her stay behind, but if all Naomi was doing was running around defenseless, the odds were probably in our favor.  Even though the floors were very wide, the path to the next one was straightforward enough to make it a quick trip.   We arrived on floor 5. We thought the elevator hadn't stopped there because it had seemed to linger for a bit too long, but I still quickly went through the three partitions while Shiroya stayed next to the first door. As I'd thought, they were empty.  I met Shiroya by the door with a dubious look. We would hear it if Naomi used the elevator to go back down, so there was no way she'd make it past us unnoticed. - “Nothing. She must be upstairs.”  We directed ourselves toward the sixth floor, but Shiroya stopped me. “H-Hold on, let's check this.” She tried to open the elevator, but the door didn't budge. Since that meant it was above us, she pressed the button to call it. Shortly, the button lit up orange in silence. Then, Shiroya opened the door and we saw the empty elevator. “With how fast it got here, it must've been on the sixth floor.”Technically, there was just one more possibility: the attic. A special key was needed, though, and Shiroya was right. The elevator had only taken a few seconds to arrive, indicating that there had only been a single floor of separation. By moving it, we'd also prevented Naomi from using it upstairs.  We quickly went up to the sixth floor, where the elevator had been brought. It hadn't been used again, so someone had to remain there. It was likely Naomi was very close.  The bathrooms were empty, so she had to be farther ahead. “I'll go check. Make sure nobody can leave.”- “What? It might not be safe. Don't just go alone.”  With a meaningless head gesture, she ran off and left me by myself. She was clearly not content with the thought of waiting behind again. I knew I had to go with her. Letting someone escape was far less important than letting Shiroya confront potential danger, but I couldn't bring myself to move. … She had disappeared from my field of vision. Given the layout of the floor, she wouldn't be able to make sure nobody could sneak past her, so I had to wait behind in anticipation. If she first checked the opposite corridor and someone was hiding in the partitions, they could then escape. If someone was in the corridor and she chose to first inspect the partitions, they could also escape. However, such a thing didn't actually hold up at all. To inspect the corridor, she would only have to see if it was empty from a position that would still let her see the inside of the first partition. That could let the culprit escape, but at least they'd be seen. I felt like she'd known I'd been about to ask her to stay behind and had chosen to change our roles before I'd had a chance to. Trying not to let undesired thoughts get the best of me, I attempted to stay calm as Shiroya had asked.  ...Almost half a minute had passed, and I began to get impatient and a bit anxious. While the floor was big, it was also silent, so if she felt she was in danger, I would be able to hear her shout easily. Only a few seconds after that, I snapped. What was I doing, standing there and leaving her up against an unknown person who'd been involved in the attack? I took off running as soon as the realization finally came to me. Or I'd been about to before I saw Shiroya's figure coming out of the narrow passageway. She approached me slowly and noticed my anxiety. “D-Did something happen?”- “...No, nothing. You took a bit, so I started to worry.” “Oh, really...? I'm sorry. I didn't find anyone, though.”- “...How is that possible? There should've been someone.” “I know. But look, this is what I wanted to show you.”- “Huh?” Once again, she walked back to where she'd come from, instructing me to follow her. Had she found something important?  Instead of stopping in front of the partitions, she continued toward the other corridor. “Earlier, we had deemed the corridor empty so quickly that we completely missed a door.”- “...What?” “Yes, look. But it's closed.” She was right. At the far back of what had appeared to be a dead end, there was a small door that we'd entirely missed. - “Oh, of course. We were told this door existed.”  It looked just like a plain door. Instinctively, I reached for the doorknob and tried to get it open to no avail—it was very tightly locked. Under it was a big keyhole that would require an equally big key to unlock the special section of the tower. - “So, past this door must be the attic, where Ashiya lived for years.” “Yes, it has to be that. There must be different stairs leading up to it since it's a floor higher.”- “Right, so it's very likely whoever came up here had a way to open this door. There's no other explanation, really.” “I thought about it a little, and that doesn't make sense to me.” “I looked through this corridor first, and since you were covering the only exit, I knew I had plenty of time, so I walked farther and realized we'd missed this door. I tried to open it, but it was already locked. Then I went to the partitions, which were empty. Since nobody could've left this floor, the only explanation is that they went through here.” “What doesn't make sense to me is that they got off on this floor with the elevator.”- “...You're right. We determined it was here, so if whoever used it was able to open this door, they would've just taken the elevator all the way up.” “Yeah. Katei said earlier that the required key works for both the door and the elevator.”- “Hm…” I tried to look through the keyhole and under the door, but nothing could be seen. Was there someone behind it, possibly listening to us?  - “We went up fast, so I doubt they could've taken the elevator up to the attic and then sent it to the sixth floor to conceal where they'd gone.” “Yeah, we experienced how slow it was. There wouldn't have been time for that. I thought that maybe this door was already unlocked or that they had the key hidden somewhere on this floor.”- “I doubt the door was unlocked. We could've easily found it earlier, so they wouldn't have let us enter it like that.” - “Also, it's locked now. If it was actually open, unless it can be manually locked from the inside, they must've had the key.” I stayed quiet for a bit. Were we on the right line of thinking? If the culprit had access to the attic, a few things we'd considered would be invalidated.  - “What if the elevator was empty?” “And someone sent it here from the crystal floor?”- “I'm not sure what the intention would be, but it's possible whoever sent it was hoping to lure us out of where we were.” “Oh, yeah. If they wanted to get to the fourth floor, they could've sent the elevator to make us follow it, but that seems pointless. It'd give them time, but they'd still be cornered. It's very easy to inspect every floor.”- “...And Sai did say that he would check the second and third floors before staying in hallway C. Unless he was the one who moved it, the culprit would've also had to make it past him.” Such a theory sounded very unlikely, but if it was right, we'd soon find out. We couldn't know if the elevator had moved before the others had reached the crystal floor.  - ”I was also thinking that if the person we're searching for has access to the attic, they might've been responsible for the first time we heard the elevator.” - “We made sure floors 5 and 6 were empty, but if that person was one floor higher, they could've called the elevator resting on floor 6 and then gone down with it. That would explain why it didn't immediately go back up.” “Hm... Then, the same person must've been who used it just now. It's possible they got off on floor 6 instead of the attic because they knew it would be empty and could easily reach this door. If we noticed the elevator and followed it, it would appear that the elevator had been empty, but if they had gone directly to the attic instead, we could've noticed that it had arrived there if we quickly called the elevator.”- “I see. Something along these lines might make the most sense. We should go see if the others found Naomi.”  We slowly walked back. I'd always seen Shiroya as a smart person, and she had just shown that sharing my thoughts with her was a good idea despite her recent frame of mind. Perhaps she had been silently thinking by herself until then. Regardless, that had been the longest conversation we'd had in many days, but it already felt like we were many steps closer to normalcy.  I knew things wouldn't quite feel right for a much longer time, but if we went back to being our normal selves around each other, we could get there much quicker.  I had kept thinking about it lately. I didn't know if the fact that my main wish to go back to how things used to be meant that I was a bad person, but I couldn't change the way I felt.  Before we reached the staircase, we noticed that fast but quiet footsteps were approaching. We stopped awkwardly and waited to see who they belonged to. ...It was Akaro. He came running from floor 5.  “What are you doing here? We need you two to come to the crystal floor.”- “Did you find Naomi?” “No, quite the opposite. Sai said that all of us should be there to discuss what happened.”- “A-All right... Let's go, then.” Akaro, out of breath, turned around without wasting time. “I didn't think you'd be on the highest floor. Weren't you supposed to wait on the fourth?” We began to go down the stairs. Meanwhile, we told Akaro that we'd determined the elevator had stopped on the sixth floor and that we hadn't found anyone. Our conversation continued as we quickly circled through floors 5 and 4. Akaro was hurrying up a fair bit, having not given us much context.  “Oh, right. We vaguely heard the elevator going up too, but Sai told us not to chase it since you two would take care of it and could've been sent as bait.”- “I suppose he gave us too much credit. We didn't react immediately, but I doubt we could've intercepted it.” Those were the last words we heard during the way down, as neither of them chose to reply with anything else.  Once we'd made it to the last set of stairs, we slowed down our pace as I began to think about what could've happened to warrant the demand of our immediate presence.  The others were all next to the stairs, waiting for us.  “That took a bit. Where were you?” “On the sixth floor.” “Oh, so you had to check every floor.” “I just ran up hoping to eventually find them, and they said they hadn't seen anyone.”- “It's where the elevator stopped, but we're not sure anyone came out of it.” “So I was right. For some reason, they just wanted it to be followed.”- “I doubt it, honestly. They could only gain time doing that, which, given there are eleven hours left, seems silly. It's possible they don't know that they've been trapped here for twelve hours, but they can't be simply trying to buy themselves time. I think they actually might've escaped by using the elevator.” “How?” - “Before that, why don't you tell us what happened? Was Naomi here?” I couldn't see her, so it was safe to assume that wasn't the case. I wanted to get straight to the point before suggesting that the person hiding from us might've had access to the attic. “We haven't looked through the whole floor yet, actually.” “I quickly made sure nobody was on the third and second floors while the others prevented anyone from sneaking past. That was when the elevator was used, and I assume you couldn't stop it.” “No, we weren't expecting it so soon.” “Whatever. We went to the first floor, and Katei's search method was put into effect. He went ahead and looked through the lobby and the mechanical room. When he was done, he stayed next to the door leading to hallway B.” “Akaro began to look through the hallway B rooms, having previously looked at the bathrooms. Isla wanted to join him, so Erina had to follow behind. The three of them started to enter the rooms while I stayed here, looking at hallway A so that nobody could escape.” “Since the elevator had already gone up, it was pointless to call it and leave its door open. I couldn't see the three of them looking inside the rooms since I was staring at the other hallway and blocking the staircase, though.” “Anyway, apparently, when they entered the event room, Isla went ahead and raised the curtain of the cabinet. The ‘It's gone!’ shout I heard even from here conveyed her surprise pretty well.” “What...? The Sekimeiya's gone?” “Yes... It should've still been there, but I didn't see it anywhere.” “Katei abandoned his position after hearing Isla's shout, but I didn't want to rush inside and leave an easy escape route open. When they came and told me what had happened, I thought you two had to come. Since we're dealing with this situation, I found it appropriate to join up and make sure nothing slipped away.” “I told Akaro to go find you, and I took that time to check if it truly had disappeared while the others waited here. It had. I stayed there a while, thinking about what could've happened, and expecting to find you two when I came back. Anyway, many rooms have not yet been investigated; we stayed here until you came back to secure the only exits.”- “I understand... It's good that the stairs and the elevator are next to each other. Can I go see it?” “If you're looking forward to seeing an empty cabinet, go ahead. As long as someone stays here, we can move through this floor.” Everyone else had been looking at us without uttering a word. Shiroya and I slowly walked toward hallway A, and as we saw that nobody was stopping us, we sped up to the event room.  “It's really not here.”- “I suppose he was right. There wasn't much of a point in checking.” “Not really.”We left through the same door and approached the others as I thought about it: what had happened? Were there really that many possibilities?
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2023 20:07
|
|
|
Regallion posted:There is also a possibility that someone is trans or lying about their gender and the "friend" uses assigned or covered up instead, with the obvious suspects being protag and Sai, with isla being a potential third. I was assuming we were counting Naomi, which would give you the right number of women but an extra man, but if she's dead or not in the building and Isla's friend knew that would be the case, then yeah, one of the men could be secretly a woman. (Vice versa would just make Isla's friend's info even more inaccurate.) It feels like a dumb move to take the stone already when they're going to be trapped in the building for eleven more hours, although I'm sure it's all part of some elaborate master plan.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2023 01:12
|
|
|
Update 16: Don't make it so obvious.  Scene: Ring Chain (Part 2) BGM: Heal  “Was it gone, or did we all lie?”- “...Apparently not.” “The Sekimeiya has been stolen this early, which is surprising. Anyone have a suggestion regarding what could've happened before we resume our search?” “It could only have been Naomi, right?” “No. It could only have been Naomi, Katei, or an unknown person.” “Will you never stop suspecting me?” “It seems not. When we split up in two groups, it's possible either Naomi or an unknown person had already stolen the Sekimeiya. That's very easy to construct. When we were in hallway B, Naomi could've entered the event room from hallway A, for example.” “The group that took the elevator—Atsuki, Shiroya, Erina, and Isla—couldn't have gotten to this floor.” “Are you sure? It's possible they went past us and we didn't notice.” “You already tried to say this earlier, didn't you? They couldn't have done that. The way we looked through the floors would've made that impossible, and they couldn't have used the elevator since we only heard it once.” “...” “And, naturally, when you came here with Naomi, you would've had an easy time picking up the Sekimeiya and then hiding it somewhere. Later, we'll check that mechanical room you were happy to inspect.” “This is ridiculous. Didn't I say how important it was for the Sekimeiya to stay in its cabinet? Why would I hide it? There aren't even places to hide it in this building, and it would be pointless!” “I will admit that I have no idea what your reason could be, but similarly, I can't think of one regardless of who the culprit is. As you say, there aren't many hiding spots, and it's very early for this.” “If one thing's for sure, it's that right now, the Sekimeiya must be on this floor with the culprit. There's no other possibility unless you question me and think that Akaro and I could've gone down instead of waiting on floor 4.”- “I don't believe that's true. You looked through floors 3 and 2 for Naomi, but if the Sekimeiya was left there, you might've missed it.” “Oh, correct. That's a possibility too, but since the elevator that went up was probably empty, nobody can be upstairs now to go pick it up and hide it further, so we can easily look for it above if nothing's found on this floor.”...Even though floors 2 and 3 were a possibility, I knew it was also very possible that the culprit had gone to the attic holding the Sekimeiya. If our search amounted to nothing, I would bring up the conclusion Shiroya and I had reached. “Let's proceed, then. We'll need to start from the beginning. Someone else go look through the lobby and the mechanical room, though.”- “Maybe we should start with that one.”  I directed my look at the room where the gemstones had been stolen—A5. “Because of the camera?”- “Yes. Like Sai said, hiding anything on this floor right now seems weird since we should be able to find it easily. We have plenty of time, and it's not a hard task. ...Not to mention that even if we can't find it, Ashiya surely will. It feels pretty redundant.” - “But there must be an actual reason behind it, and if they really intended to hide it from us, a room that's not being recorded seems to be the most likely place. Even if it's found, Ashiya will never be able to look at the footage to see who hid it.” - “This is a bit confusing, though. It's true that our three suspects are Katei, Naomi, and an unknown person. All of them would've had access to the Sekimeiya while we were asleep, so I wonder why they didn't hide it then.” “That's true... Well, we can check there first if someone stays here.”Sai walked to the room and gestured at me to follow him. Everyone else stayed next to the stairs, as it wasn't yet a thorough search that would require further positioning.  “Let's see. We should keep the door open. Otherwise, we won't see anything.”At first glance, there wasn't anything odd in the room. It all looked as it had when we'd last been there. Even though cabinets were the only thing inside, Sai started slowly examining them. I began looking through the opposite side of the room. Shortly, I confirmed that places to hide a small object certainly existed. Behind the cabinets, under the pillows that normally held gemstones... A cabinet even had empty drawers.  As I looked at Sai, I realized that even though their looks were nearly identical, not every cabinet was the same. He was looking inside the expansive interior of a cabinet after he'd opened up the heavy-looking lid. It seemed that the upper sections, where the gemstones usually were, could be lifted up. - “Is there anything there?”  “...Yes. Some of these have hollow interiors, most likely to store things. Look, though.”I had to get close to him, as the lack of illumination made it impossible to see what he was holding. It was nothing noteworthy; he was cupping a small, yellow gemstone on his palm. “They must keep some of these inside the cabinets to swap out the displayed ones. Apparently, not all of this room's valuables were stolen.”- “I see. I guess this could make for a decent hiding spot.” “Sort of. The others were taking a while earlier, so they probably opened up some cabinets too. It's still an obvious spot if you're trying to find something.” ...I went ahead and opened up a cabinet that looked like the one Sai was next to. It was a lot easier than it looked, and a wide but completely empty compartment appeared before me. As all the displayed pieces were usually attached to the surface below the glass, when the lid was opened up like a chest, they didn't roll. - “There's nothing in this one.” “Yeah, the first one I looked at was empty as well.” Not many more cabinets were left. Shortly after that, we had looked through all of them. “It seems you were wrong. It's not here.”I started to go over the cabinets Sai had looked through to be confident. “Do you doubt my searching abilities, or do you think I hid it here and ignored it?”- “...Neither, I just want to make sure we don't miss anything.” I answered without looking at him. It didn't take me long to come to the same conclusion: the Sekimeiya was not in the room. “Are you done? We'll take forever if every room takes us this long.”- “We should probably look for anyone on this floor and then do a slower search for the Sekimeiya. The chances of someone and the Sekimeiya being here are pretty much the same.” “That could be a good idea. Let's go back.” When he turned around, I fixed my eyes on Sai's back. Specifically, at the hip pack going around his waist. He stopped when he noticed I was still staring at him. “Are you looking at this?”He turned it around him and showed me its contents. I could only see a wallet and lip balm appropriate for the cold. “Don't be stupid. It might fit in here, but it'd be more than noticeable. Did you think I'd found it and masterfully put it in without your notice?”- “Oh, no. I was just looking at it.” “I quite like it too. One of those birthday presents I first shrugged off and then ended up using frequently.”Once again, he turned around and quickly left the room. I sighed and followed his steps. Outside, he was already next to the others.  “Anything...?” “Nothing.”I tried to think of places where the Sekimeiya could've been hidden, but I couldn't come up with any good ones. If it was still on the crystal floor, we should've been able to find it. In a locker, maybe? That's the only safe place I can think of. Oh, how about there?  The suitcase was still on the floor of hallway C. Did they bank on us not checking it again? As I got closer to it, my confidence in that theory decreased. Surely they hadn't relied on such a simple trick. It was still empty.  “Let's start, then. I suppose checking the bathrooms again is pointless since nobody could've entered them.”Without waiting, Akaro stood up and headed toward hallway B. Isla followed behind, which obligated Erina to go with them.  “Let's continue with hallway A, actually. It's about time we find out if someone else is here, so let's first check for that. Akaro, before you move on to hallway B, look through the mechanical room too. Mind being the one in the lobby this time, Atsuki? Katei and I will stay here to watch hallway B.”- “...Sure.” The others accepted it easily and began with hallway A, ignoring the room we'd just gotten out of.  Presumptuous as it was, Sai could've kept ordering us around as long as it was efficient. Since Shiroya didn't have a fixed position, she moved to the lobby door with me. From there, we looked at the three people checking every room. Akaro led the pack. My first idea had been that someone might've left the Sekimeiya inside a room without active security cameras. While the first location had been incorrect, that was still the most likely possibility. Five other rooms that met that criterion were still available: the staff room, the cleaning room, the mechanical room, the security room, and the storeroom. I looked inside the cleaning bucket, the only place in the lobby where the Sekimeiya could've been hidden from view, but it only contained soapy water. The storeroom was examined, but they were just quickly looking for people—not the Sekimeiya. It was very possible it was in one of those rooms, and if, for example, Naomi had put it inside her locker in the staff room, there wasn't much we could do about it. That was one of the only good hiding spots I could think of.  They entered the event room once again. Then, the security room, another place that allowed for an easy way to it without being spotted by cameras, was acknowledged as clean.  Once I'd seen them come out of every room and claim that nobody had been in them, Akaro went to look at the mechanical room. Even though Isla remained outside, uninterested, Erina joined him as well. They took a considerably longer time with it since the messy interior made a proper search difficult. Once they returned, their looks indicated that again, nothing of relevance had been found inside, refuting Sai's suspicion. Afterward, they moved on to hallway B. Shiroya and I walked to the hallway B door too, as it wasn't necessary to keep watching A any longer. As soon as it had been deemed empty, the only remaining concern was whether someone could move from hallway B to A through the event room, and since Sai and Katei had watched hallway B, it wasn't a real possibility. Technically, only two people were needed to optimally search through the whole floor as long as someone stayed next to the stairs while looking into hallway A. Then, the other person could safely look through every room. We'd only been doing it differently because it was what Katei had suggested. They started from the rooms on the lobby side onward. Shiroya and I could clearly see Sai and Katei standing on the other exit of the hallway, enacting tight control over the few rooms that remained for Naomi or an extra person to be inside. If nobody was found in them, the possibility Shiroya and I had come up with would be almost confirmed: that the actual culprit had been in the attic until we'd heard the elevator going down, and that they'd brought the Sekimeiya up with them to hide on a floor we couldn't access. As that theory grew more likely, I thought further on it and quickly picked up on an important inconsistency. Akaro and Sai had said that when they'd heard the elevator sound, Naomi had already shown up and left with Katei. If that was the case, Naomi could not have been in the attic the way I'd constructed my theory. To make it work, I had to slightly change it.  Nothing was out of place if we'd missed Naomi when we'd inspected the crystal floor together, she had gone up to the third floor to talk with Katei, and then had called the elevator to keep it on the first floor. Later, she'd used it to move to the attic as soon as she'd obtained the Sekimeiya, probably because she'd realized she couldn't convince Katei. The first three rooms were handled with ease. The others kept going and looked through the event room once again despite the fact that it was impossible anything in it had changed. Nonchalantly—almost forgetting what could've been resting in any of the rooms—Akaro opened the door in front of it. He looked inside, and his body froze. *BGM Stops* From afar, I was able to see his expression shifting to a blank and pale one. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned around, frantically trying to meet someone's gaze.  “What's wrong...? Anything inside?”The silent corridors allowed us to make out their words. On the other side, Sai and Katei had also realized that something unusual was inside that room. BGM: Subterrain “...Wh-What!? Isla, stop!”Erina, after peeking over Akaro's shoulder, immediately pushed aside Isla, who'd been about to glance into the room. “Hm...? Let me see…” “Guys, come here. It seems we weren't wrong.”With an altered voice, Akaro instructed we could abandon our positions, as the search had finished. A little tense, we went to see what had caused those reactions. Sai brushed past Akaro to see what had been found. Despite his effort at appearing unfazed and composed, the moment he set his eyes inside, he was visibly startled.   “S-Seriously...?”The room, B4, was in the middle of the hallway. Katei, Shiroya, and I arrived at the same time, silently glancing at each other. Erina was still tightly holding Isla, and both of them moved back to let us see through the door.  “...” “Oh God, no…” It didn't take us a second to understand it. On the floor lay the body of Naomi over a pool of blood. On the wall, close to the door, were traces of more blood. Not only that, but a strange odor became noticeable as soon as I stepped inside. I couldn't associate it to anything, but it wasn't prominent enough to be aggravating. “Katei, if you're gonna kill somebody, don't make it so obvious.”
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2023 22:56
|
|
|
Hmm. Katei once again looks the most suspicious out of the group, being the last one to see Naomi alive, the only one to be alone with her and on the floor where the murder happened (due to the amount of blood in the room, it's probably safe to assume the body wasn't moved). Atsuki and Shiroya were together the entire time, so they can be considered cleared. Erina and Isla were with Atsuki during the initial Naomi meeting and later moved with the group who searched for Naomi. Also Isla is probably not capable of killing an adult. I'd consider them cleared as well. Akaro, Sai and Katei claimed to have met with Naomi, then she asked to speak with Katei alone. Sai distrusts Katei, so I don't think he'd lie about meeting with Naomi, and even if the two of them were secretly working together, there's Akaro as well. So we can assume that Naomi actually did meet with the group, unless Sai made up some four dimensional chess masterplan that involved lying about seeing Naomi and convinced the other two to go along with it. I think that one's kind of unlikely. As the game has pointed out, it's certainly weird that Sai was completely OK with letting the most suspicious people in the building have a nice long talk in private and didn't even attempt to listen in on them. The second time the elevator was moved, it was clearly empty. Naomi couldn't have used it on account of being dead/currently getting murdered on the crystal room floor. So the elevator was sent up in order to lure Atsuki and Shiroya away. Sai claims to have searched the second and third floor when the elevator moved, possibly on his own. Before that he'd stayed behind to watch the staircase, so he could conceivably have run into Naomi and killed her. Problem with that being that Naomi was killed in B4, which is on the side that was searched first. So Satei would have to have killed Naomi while the others were looking at the Sekimeiya? Moving her corpse would have been easier timing wise, so maybe she did die somewhere else? Guess we'll have to wait until the group examines the corpse for that. For Katei it's a lot easier. He searched two rooms by himself, then was alone and with no witnesses watching him for a while. Ataro was with Erina and Isla during the search.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 11:48
|
|
|
Yeah, the thing is that Katei is so obviously suspicious that he loops around to seeming like a red herring. But it is difficult to pin anyone else for this other than him. His story about his discussion with Naomi also reeks of being total bullshit and he's the only one who definitely had the opportunity to do it without complications. For the story about Naomi showing up to be a lie it would require Sai, Akaro and Katei to all be in cahoots. If that were the case, they're the physically strongest people in the building and could just overpower the rest. Or just hide the body for as long as possible to avoid suspicion. Instead it was just left somewhere that it would definitely be found almost immediately.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 14:56
|
|
|
I think the amount of blood at the scene argues against the body having been moved. The blood on the wall could have been put there deliberately, but the pool of blood under the body would be harder to fake.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2023 21:04
|
|
|
Okay let’s assume that Naomi is dead and this is not some catastrophic ketchup accident. Next update I imagine they’ll explicitly confirm what happened and we’ll get a few more details but I think we can already start constructing a loose relative timeline of events to get an idea when it might have happened. 1. The group search crystal floor and find nothing 2. Atsuki, Shiroya, Isla, Erika take the elevator to the 6th floor. 3. Sai, Katei, Akaro take the stairs up to the 2nd floor. 4. Atsuki, Shiroya, Isla, Erika search the 6th floor. Find nothing. Head down. 5. Atsuki, Shiroya, Isla, Erika search the 5th floor. Find nothing. They hear a “faint but deep” sound, which they later attribute to the elevator. 6. Atsuki, Shiroya, Isla, Erika move to the 4th floor. Moving through the floor they meet Akaro and Sai. 7. Akaro and Sai explain that Naomi appeared, and wanted to talk to privately with Katei. They also mention they heard the elevator after Katei and Naomi left. They only heard the elevator once. They were on the 3rd floor and just about to move to the 4th when Naomi came from below. 8. Katei comes from the 3rd floor and confirms their story about Naomi. Katei says he talked with Naomi and that he didn’t call the elevator. 9. Atsuki and Shiroya stay on floor 4. 10. Sai and Akaro go to search floors 2 and 3. Isla, Erika and Katei go to search the crystal floor. 11. Atsuki and Shiroya hear the elevator, but are unable to stop it in time. 12. Atsuki and Shiroya rush to the 5th floor. Search the 5th floor and find nothing. They call the elevator and it arrives almost immediately so they say it must’ve been on the 6th floor. 13. Atsuki and Shiroya search the 6th floor and find nothing. 14. Akaro meets Atsuki and Shiroya, and tells them to come to the crystal floor. 15. They regroup on the crystal floor. Sai says he was searching the 2nd and 3rd floors, whilst the others made sure nobody snuck past and that’s when the elevator was used. Sai explains their search process for the crystal floor. Katei searched mechanical room and lobby, then guarded B corridor. Sai guarded A corridor. Akaro, Isla, Erina started searching B rooms. Isla checked event room and found the egg gone. That’s when they sent Akaro up to retrieve Atsuki and Shiroya. 16. Everyone confirms the egg has gone. 17. Atsuki and Sai check room A5 whilst everyone else guards C corridor. 18. Sai and Katei guard B corridor whilst Akaro, Isla, Erina search A rooms 19. Sai and Katei guard B corridor whilst Akaro, Isla, Erina search B rooms 20. Naomi is found in a pool of blood in room B4. Likely she was killed at that location. Assuming there’s no twins/clones/imposters bullshit going on, then Naomi must have died after step 7. That’s the last time she was seen alive. That window might get narrowed down even further depending on what B corridor rooms Akaro +Isla +Erina checked when they searched the crystal floor again (just before Isla notices the egg is missing), but for now let’s take step 7 as the limit. Note that when other characters explain something, the listed timeline spot is for when the explanation occurs not when the event occurs. Naomi could have killed herself after step 7. But it seems like kind of a gruesome suicide. Katei could have killed Naomi after step 7. A hidden extra person could have killed Naomi after step 7. Naomi was probably already dead when Isla spotted the egg was missing, else Naomi would have come to investigate what all the shouting was about. I guess it’s possible that someone killed her in the confusion, but it seems risky and unlikely (and Katei is still one of the most likely suspects here anyway). IMO descending order of likelihood for a kill here: Akaro > Katei > Sai >> Erina >>>>> Isla. We don’t know precisely when this happened because we only hear about it after the fact but it would be some point before step 14. Maybe Sai and Katei working together could have killed Naomi at step 18? But this seems incredibly unlikely. For like 4 different reasons. So now I’m actually thinking that there might be an extra person hiding here that did it. Because right now it seems like Katei is the only one who had a significant opportunity to kill Naomi... which makes it an INCREDIBLY stupid kill. Especially when he’s already heavily suspected. Or maybe he’s just the world’s worst Among Us player. Also, if there’s that much blood it seems unlikely that the killer would come off spotless but nobody we’ve seen had anything noticeable on them. The game mentions blood traces near the door, so they’ve thought about how blood might leave a mark on things. Also thinking about timelines brings me to a thought. There’s comments by Sai and Akaro that they couldn’t tell which direction the elevator was travelling. But because A+S+I+E had just taken it to the 6th floor, they say it must have been travelling down. We know both groups heard the elevator, but we don’t know WHEN they heard the elevator relative to each other. So we don’t know for certain who heard it first and which direction it was travelling. So there’s the possibility of a misdirect here, if there’s a second hidden elevator (leading directly to the attic maybe) then it might have been travelling a different direction from what they thought. Atsuki and Shiroya later call the elevator on floor 5 and it comes down from floor 6... but floor 6 is where they left the elevator when they themselves used it earlier so regardless of if there is or isn’t a second elevator the primary elevator would still be on floor 6. I’m not sure how or why elevator tricks would matter though. At least right now anyway. I bring this up because I’ve convinced myself that there has to be some hidden area somewhere. Clearly the most obvious hiding spot in the building is in the attic. Katei is saying it’s locked and nobody can get in, but I think it’s basically a certainty that we’ll visit it before the end of the game and somebody could have been hiding up there. However Naomi could NOT have come from the attic. Sai and Akaro were on the 3rd floor when they say Naomi came from below, and they say they heard the elevator AFTER Naomi turned up. So she couldn’t have used the elevator to sneak down from the attic, the game keeps saying nobody could have snuck past them on the office floors (she would have need to sneak past both groups if she was heading down using the stairs), so she must have come from somewhere on the 2nd floor or the crystal floor. Of the two the crystal floor seems much more likely, as the game keeps saying how difficult it would be to hide on the office floors. So there’s probably some kind of hidden area or hiding spot on the first floor. And they already extensively searched that floor as a group. Even if someone in the group was covering for Naomi and lying about rooms being empty I don’t think there’s any rooms that only one person searched? And Naomi scooby doo-ing her way out of rooms just outside of people’s sight doesn’t seem possible. And it would be pointless to do all that, then just walk up to half the group for a casual chat with Katei anyway. I also think it’s suspicious that we don’t see Naomi ourselves, when Akaro+Sai+Katei met up with her. You could have a scenario where someone appears, calls themselves ‘Naomi’ but isn’t actually the person we met at the start of the game. I don’t think that quite works here, however. Katei is definitely hiding some things and could lie about someone’s name to trick people... but Akaro was also in the group that went first with Naomi so he should recognise her. And Naomi announced herself to everyone in the lobby, and Sai seems extremely perceptive (see him recognising Katei from the lobby) so it seems like he’d be very difficult to trick. If Katei + Erina + Isla met Naomi off-screen, then I’d be worried if they were tricking us with a fake and VNs do certainly like perspective tricks, but I think this had to be Naomi. Also if there was an imposter you’d think the death of the real Naomi would quickly reveal the deception - if half the group are saying “oh no Naomi” and the other half are saying “who the hell is this?” Cloacamazing! posted:The second time the elevator was moved, it was clearly empty. Naomi couldn't have used it on account of being dead/currently getting murdered on the crystal room floor. So the elevator was sent up in order to lure Atsuki and Shiroya away. Lured to/from what though? I guess luring them to the 6th floor might have created a slightly larger time window to do something? But probably not that significant? They could have lured them away from floor 4, because there was something hidden on floor 4 and they wanted a time window to retrieve it. I guess fitting in with my observation that we don’t know when the two groups heard the elevator, it’s possible that there was a significant gap between them. When the elevator first moved Atsuki Group heard the elevator on floor 5, Sai group heard the elevator on floor 3 (just before they were going to go up to floor 4). So it might have been possible for someone to get out on f4, do something, then hop back in the elevator and continue onwards. Without the two groups realising the elevator made an intermediate stop. Which might explain why they wanted a clear run on f4 later on. Couple of problems though 1) The intermediate stop on f4 would have been just before the floor got searched. So if they were hiding something it would have needed to be extremely well hidden. 2) The only person who could’ve made the retrieval is Akaro or maybe an extra person. The only people who could have hidden something there are maybe Katei, Naomi, or an extra person. 3) It’s not like they’ve been continually emptying everyone’s pockets to prove they don’t have anything and certainly it seems like Naomi or a unseen extra person already had a better hiding spot given how we couldn’t find them. 4) The most obvious thing to stash and later retrieve is the egg, but I don’t think the logistics of that quite work. My idea with a secondary elevator was that it could go between the yet unseen attic and maybe a secret room on the crystal floor or a secret basement. Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch as it is, but a secret elevator that could go any floor seems even less likely. And the elevator we do know was on the 6th floor and each group only heard it once. So it couldn’t have been used to bring something up from the crystal floor to hide it. Additionally Sai group heard the elevator on f3 just before they were about to go to f4, so there wouldn’t have been a timing window to do something on f4 if the elevator was going up. But if the elevator was going down then there might have been a timing window. I don’t think these problems are insurmountable, and it’s an interesting idea, just doesn’t fully hold together yet. Elite fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Mar 21, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2023 02:56
|
|
|
The problem with Mystery Person X is that they make no sense from a mystery point of view. It would be incredibly boring if there were some unknown person hiding inthe attic with the Sekimeiya, ready to commit murders and disappear again, and we just never found out about them, as that would make the mystery unsolvable until the point where they were revealed. Isla even confirmed that her mysterious friend is not in the building. One additional thing that comes to my mind: The game went out of its way to confirm that Sai did not have the Sekimeiya at the point where the rooms were searched. It wasn't in the display cases Atsuki checked, he didn't hide it in the display cases he checked and it wasn't in his bag. Absent a Mystery Pocket X, we can take it for granted that Sai is not currently in possession of the Sekimeiya, which is important since him and Katei were again the people best positioned to grab it. In this case, Sai actually has the easiest way of grabbing it, since everybody else is in the other hallway. But if he has stolen it, he needed another hiding place. Maybe that's why he sent the elevator up? He could have easily hidden the Sekimeiya during the time he searched for Naomi on the lower floor, and Atsuki and Shiroya were out of the way.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2023 09:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 12:13 |
|
|
Update 17: Oh, shut the gently caress up. Scene: Darkroom (Part 1) BGM: Subterrain  “Katei, if you're gonna kill somebody, don't make it so obvious.”The mood abruptly changed at Sai's careless words. It had happened earlier, but that time, we all found it far over the line. Especially Erina, who had been trying to keep Isla unaware of what had happened. “You must be joking... Don't even think about accusing me.”Sai moved over to the body. With two fingers, he confirmed its status. “She's definitely dead. She probably already was when we got back to this floor. This room wasn't searched earlier, right?” “No. We stopped at the event room. This one was next, so you could be right.” “No, th-that's…” “Wait!” Isla, who hadn't yet put up any resistance, was able to escape from Erina's grip. Her shock increased even further when she understood that we hadn't been lying. “But... that's impossible! Why did—” “It's clearly possible, just look at her. And I'll sure think about it, Katei. You are the only person who could've done this.” While they were audibly reacting, I found myself silently aghast, which I hadn't been prepared for. I'd been carelessly going over the incident, but as soon as the image of the dead Naomi had met my eyes, any focus on reality had departed from my body.  Shiroya, at my side, looked identical to me. The concept of death and loss had recently been changed for us. She and I hadn't had to experience it until two weeks ago, when the world we'd created together had crumbled down without warning. Naomi's lifeless body was an immediate reminder. One that had come as soon as I started having hope for the future again. I looked at Shiroya's face as the others kept spitting meaningless words. Nothing but fright was present all over it, but perhaps the others wouldn't have noticed it. Her effort at moving on had been denied by reality, which had put us back in our place. I never knew how to respond. Thoughtless reassurance wouldn't achieve anything. However, even though it might not have been any help, I tried to put all my uncertain words into a hand that I placed on her shoulder to distance myself from the insentient and inanimate support I'd been until then.  BGM: Outershell  Shiroya and I knew each other since our first year of elementary school, where we became classmates for the first time. Our parents were friends, which quickly tied us together. We would see one another during school and our parents' meetings, so we grew close fast. Before becoming classmates, we'd already met a few times, but we'd never exchanged any words. Our parents worked for Yushibana's hospital, but their work involved securing deals with entities outside the town, which made them travel very often. We'd been told that the four of them were a group of friends since long before we were born, and that they all met when they were ranked lower in their workplace. A bit more than a year prior, they accepted a job offer overseas. Despite their insistent attempts at making us accompany them, we were strongly against it, as we'd lived in Yushibana our whole lives, and the idea of traveling to another continent wasn't a pleasant one. Unlike them, we didn't even know the language there. They eventually had to give up and accepted paying for our necessary expenses like food and rent. We'd lived by ourselves since then.  One year ago, Shiroya and I finished high school together. In Yushibana, people tended to move out if they planned to attend university, seeing as the closest one was hours away. That was why we hadn't yet decided on what to do and had thought of the year 2011 as a pivotal point where we'd decide. Money wasn't an immediate problem for either of us, and we weren't sure what we wanted to study if we decided to move. The last important factor that influenced our decision had made an appearance in our lives when we started middle school. Most of us were the same people who had attended elementary school together, but a new classmate named Miiya moved to Yushibana that year. At first, Shiroya and I didn't talk to her much, and neither did our usual group of friends. Miiya quickly became comfortable with other people of our class, which kept some distance between us.  That changed three years later, the day she approached me when I was alone. It seemed like she felt curious about us and wanted to hang out. I never really understood what drove her to do that, but we spent an entire afternoon together, and immediately after that day, she would spend some time with me every so often. A few months later, she appeared when Shiroya and I were together, and they introduced themselves in more depth. Since then, the three of us started to become comfortable around each other after school. It was a bit strange since Shiroya and I were used to being alone, but we quickly took a liking to Miiya. She was a blunt and sincere girl—one who didn't seem to have many worries in life or think too hard about things. Even though she'd made her way into our lives out of the blue, we shortly became accustomed to her presence. While, initially, she'd pass the time with us sporadically and act as another link between Shiroya and me, the frequency increased to the point where the three of us would spend almost every afternoon together.  Last year, the end of high school became a little obstacle for what had grown to be our daily lives. Miiya was different from us in the sense that she knew she didn't want to continue studying, and she instead started searching for a job in Yushibana while living with her parents. The previous summer was not an easy one for us. Shiroya and I weren't sure what to do with our futures, and we knew that if our decisions differed, we might stop seeing each other. Behind everything else, that was always my biggest worry, and at the same time, Miiya was only focused on searching for a job that could want her. I felt like I was stuck in the past, wishing that our school days could continue as always. Meanwhile, the uncertainty of the future wouldn't let Shiroya rest easy. That made it hard for us to keep up with each other, and even though the circumstances were perfect for a summer together, the three of us spent it alone. It all started to shift back to normal once Shiroya and I decided that neither of us wanted to move out for the time being. We would spend one extra year thinking about it, so at first, that was a perfect excuse to go back to how everything had been before the holidays.  Unfortunately, everything quickly appeared to be really stiff. Shiroya and I had talked frequently about our decisions through messages, but the three of us hadn't personally seen each other in a while. None of us were at our best, and we felt down and unenthusiastic. That made our relationship loosen even further, and the distance between us kept increasing. When I recognized what it had all turned into, sadness really got to me. I couldn't do anything to go back to our routine, and I wasn't sure if they wanted to. Other friends I had from school had completely disappeared from my life in the blink of an eye. For two or three months, my old life continued fading away. ...That was until I received a call from Miiya. She confessed to having been feeling like me and wanting to restore everything. I immediately called Shiroya, who sounded in the same need. It was just over two weeks before the Sekimeiya showing when we met at my house. We'd gone the longest time without meeting, but we still recognized each other as the people we'd spent the entirety of our teenage years with. It was a bit hard at first, but since we knew the three of us wanted to finally get over our new barriers, the constricting ice that had formed around us broke much more easily than I'd anticipated.  We said that we'd go back to how everything had been during the start of the year. The three of us needed it and had been fearing that it had ended long ago. Even though we'd settled that, there weren't many things to do during the winter in Yushibana. Hanging out and talking for hours used to work in the past, but during the fresh starting days, that might not have sufficed. That was how we came across Ashiya's claim that, on December 15th, their biggest event to date would be held. Shiroya and I disliked Ashiya to an extent, but Miiya, having moved to Yushibana as a kid, didn't share the same feeling that had been prominently pushed onto us by the older residents. She had only been vaguely told about the main outline of it all, so when she proposed attending the event, we couldn't refuse it. It honestly sounded like a fine idea to us. Anything the three of us could go to was good. According to the announcement, an event was held on Ashiya Tower every Thursday, each one requiring special entrance tickets.  We accepted it and bought them before they ran out. December had always been a special month for me and Shiroya: my birthday was on the 21st, while hers was on the 19th. We were happy we had reunited just in time for them. As no other special matters were scheduled to happen in Yushibana, we decided to keep looking through Ashiya's events. One that might've been interesting was scheduled for January 26th, when every gemstone in the building would be replaced. We thought that if we enjoyed it the first Thursday, maybe that'd be a good day to return. Meanwhile, we agreed to meet up frequently until the 15th.  However, just the next day, Miiya died. We found ourselves in an incident that took her life, and Shiroya had to be hospitalized. It was comically tragic. Everything we thought we had regained was immediately ripped away from us. Shiroya was in a coma for a few days, but she ultimately didn't suffer from anything major. The days during which I waited still, thinking that I might've lost the last two people from my normal life, were harder than anything I'd thought I'd ever have to suffer. To add unnecessary cruelty, neither my parents nor Shiroya's showed up, and they only talked to police officers and doctors over the phone. My parents even used the opportunity to request me to go live with them. They'd been very insistent about that in the past, and the incident gave them the chance to force it even further. I had almost never talked to Miiya's parents, but when I saw them talking to the agent in charge, it was clear that they were devastated; everything in their lives had collapsed in the span of a single day.  When Shiroya woke up, I was in her hospital room and told her about what had occurred. Without even being able to cry, she must've despised everything that had led to that outcome. After the doctors told her that she wouldn't have to spend more time in the hospital, I offered to let her stay at my house. Having each other as company should've been beneficial for both of us, and my parents' house was big enough. She almost accepted immediately, but she ended up saying she'd think about it. I insisted, saying that she wouldn't be a bother, and accompanied her to her apartment. The next day, she accepted and came over for a temporary stay. Despite all my efforts at being helpful, I spent the days closed up physically and mentally, hating myself for that too. I remained shut in my room, sleeping during the day and glancing through the window at night. The life we'd lived for years had met an abrupt end immediately after resuming itself. It wasn't something anyone should have experienced, and it was nothing short of impossible for us to stop wallowing in our own pathetic misery.  I didn't want to distance myself from Shiroya; facing the thought of being left alone was unbearable. That was why I'd immediately asked her to remain together for a few days. At home, we briefly saw each other every day, but no conversations aside from simple words to coordinate ourselves came from either of us. At least, she spent the days with Maxi and Umi, a dog and a cat that had lived with me for years, which I hoped made her feel less lonely. I also got to hear her voice a handful of times when she talked to her parents over the phone, but they never ended up coming. On the 14th, the day before the event, we met in the living room and saw the three tickets we'd bought for it inside the brown purse Miiya would sometimes carry. Knowing that our plans would never happen completely tore me up. I didn't know whether to throw the tickets away, but before I could decide, Shiroya spoke. "Should we still go?" It wasn't at all something I'd expected to hear, but it conveyed everything Shiroya had been feeling. ...I'd been trying to muster the strength to say it myself too. Despite our sudden loss, she didn't want us to grow cold again.  We decided we'd go anyway, trying not to let the death of our closest friend directly kill our relationship too. We saw it as confirmation that even though everything looked more than grim, we'd do all we could to make it eventually get better. We finally talked a bit before the night came. Our schedules were all over the place, and we had to wake up very early to make it to Ashiya Tower before 9:00. As the night went on, it was clear that neither of us would be able to sleep. Painfully conscious of our surroundings, we both stayed awake, unable to rest in any way. Once it was clear that it would persist, Shiroya suggested leaving early. It was a relieving thought, which I'd considered proposing already. I agreed immediately. I needed to move and feel the cold of the night. From Miiya's purse, Shiroya took two of the three tickets and put them in hers, along with our identification to validate them and the keys to my house. As we stepped outside, a calm and pleasant night welcomed us back to our town. We walked through desolate streets without an objective in mind, letting time move at its own pace.  Eventually, we reached the outskirts. We were close to Ashiya; we wouldn't usually walk through that part of Yushibana, but we waited right outside the tower in a little plaza Ashiya kept clean, waiting for the sun to rise. At 6:00, everything around us was covered in snow, and even though we'd grown used to the sheer cold of the mountains, staying outside for that long exceeded our limit. We walked to the entrance of the tower and were told by a guard that we could wait inside until the doors opened to the public. We were met by a lady sorting a bunch of papers behind the reception desk. Shiroya and I hadn't talked much, but not leaving each other alone more than sufficed. The only other person was a man in the middle of the room, wearing a lost look. He glanced at us for an instant before going back to his previous gaze. We'd later learn his name was Akaro, and I would speak to him for the first time in the event room.  Things had continued and led to... death. Once again, the cruel sensation of death had appeared before us after avoiding it for almost twenty years. It had taken a single dead body to make me reminisce over my whole life. I'd started to think that I'd been climbing the first steps to get over what had happened by immersing myself in our present incident, but that had been far from accurate. Even though I'd gotten Shiroya to start returning to her usual self, at that moment, her face gave away how meaningless that had been. *BGM Stops*  Words started making sense again. Sai, who had been thoughtlessly messing with me without a clue what my last few days had been like, was accusing Katei of murder. “You're out of your mind! I would never kill anyone!” “Then why did you? Don't you recall what we've been doing? Nobody else could've been here to do this.”- “What if you were the one who did it, Sai?” BGM: Hicaz  It was pissing me off. It was reasonable to think that Katei was the culprit, but accusing anyone of stealing someone's life so lightly was something I really didn't like. For that very reason, Shiroya was surprised when she heard me suddenly spit those words. “Excuse me? I was with Akaro on the fourth floor, and the last time we entered this room, we all saw it empty.” “He's right, we didn't move from there. Do you intend to say that maybe we both did it to frame Katei?”- “No. Sure, that might also be a possibility that lets Katei not be a murderer, but Sai had an easier way all by himself. He said it earlier, right? That he went to check if the Sekimeiya had truly disappeared while you all waited next to the stairs.” - “He even admitted to having spent a while thinking about what had happened. The event room connects both hallways, and from the stairs, you wouldn't have seen what was happening in hallway B. You saw Naomi and chased her up to this room. You definitely could've done this.” I couldn't let out the word ‘kill’ easily since I didn't believe that as the most likely truth, but I didn't want to let Sai act as if Katei had to be forcibly labeled as a murderer if other possibilities existed.  “You're not being serious, right? Don't you think Naomi would've yelled? There's blood on the wall, so since blood is coming from the back of her head, she was probably pushed into it. It follows that she was seeing her killer as it happened, so she would've yelled.” “We would only have missed such a yell if Katei and Naomi had been the only ones present on this floor at the time.”- “But what if she didn't yell? You can't possibly be saying that blood on the wall means she had to. Maybe it happened too fast for her to react, or maybe her mouth was covered.” “Atsuki, don't be stupid. You must also be aware that Katei had to be the one who did this.” “...” “The blood on the wall is next to the door, and Naomi's body is perpendicular to the wall. If you're gonna push someone against a wall, you'll need to be farther from it than your victim, right?” “Meaning that the culprit was farther from the door than Naomi. You could infer from there that they either entered the room before Naomi or that they entered at the same time.” “That makes sense if Katei was the culprit, but if I chased Naomi here, I wouldn't have had it easy to push her into this wall. She would've been farther into the room than me, so I would've had to push her against one of the other three walls. Ignoring, obviously, that she would not have run into a room only to be cornered; she would've escaped from the hallway.”- “Or maybe you entered the room first and the noise lured her in. Maybe you chased her down when she was in the middle of the room, and since she headed to the exit, you pushed her against this wall.” - “I'm not trying to accuse you, but stop acting as if Katei must be responsible.” “...”- “Also, what the hell is this smell? Does anyone recognize it?”  “...I have no idea what it is.” “Me neither, but fine. Tell me, Atsuki, do you believe I killed Naomi? There's a working security camera here, for gently caress's sake. Do you think I'd ruin my life to kill someone I didn't even know a couple hours ago?”- “I don't really think you're responsible.” “Then you're accusing Katei too! Sure, I could've had the chance to do it, but there's no other possibility. If you're saying you think I didn't do it, you're also saying you think Katei did.” “I would never kill a person. This has gone too far, Sai.” “Oh, shut the gently caress up.”- “You're wrong. There's at least one more possibility.” “What, did Naomi jump into the wall and break her head open?” - “...Remember when the elevator went up before you all reached this floor? It stopped on the sixth. Shiroya and I made sure nobody could've gone unnoticed, but there's a way around that.” “Right, through the door we can't open.”- “The one leading to the attic.” “...He's right. Someone could've gone in before we got there.”Shiroya was trying not to let the shock and despair consume her, and I was glad to be backed up. Even though Erina and Isla should've reacted to the mention of a door they hadn't seen, they didn't so much as twitch. “But it was locked, right? Didn't Katei say that a unique key was required to enter the attic?”- “Yes, but imagining a culprit with that key isn't all that crazy, is it?” “*sigh*” “Please... This is just pathetic to watch.” “Hm? What is?” It also took me by surprise. Katei was looking directly at me. “Atsuki, stop trying to find nonexistent ways out. You are the one who killed Naomi.”
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2023 09:33
|
|