“Finally, finally! We were starting to think we’d have to take some desperate measures here!”
“Th-this is terribly sad… but… a-at least now one of you has a chance to go home!”
“That person being the one who killed the little match girl.”
“I-it’s terrible what happened to the other person, of course, but since they’re not part of the game… It was pretty pointless to kill ’em… Probably!”
If those were the only two people Neko-Neko mentioned… Did that mean Fenna was still alive? You couldn’t ponder it much or try to ask before they continued.
“I’ll leave the investigation up to you all. But we’re not giving you much time—just enough for us to take care of the exit door. So it’s probably a good idea to split up, nya. Small teams can cover more ground! We think. It’s not like we’ve done this before.”
“I’ll mark a map in your notebooks, just to have a little helpful reference! Maybe each group can cover a different area?”
“That’s the smartest plan, at least—And, oh, we should mention…”
“Each investigation group will nominate one defendant! Does that make any sense to you? Of course not! Yet. Simply put, you’ll each look at what you’ve found and decide which Passenger was most likely to have killed Atsuko. And no cheating off other groups! Save any of that hubbub for the trial itself, thank you.”
“You’ll probably want to all nominate different defendants, anyway, just to be safe. Because if the killer isn’t listed as a defendant at all…”
“…mostly it just means we gotta jump through more pointless legal hoops. So, nothing against any rules, strictly speaking… But you wouldn’t wanna test our patience, would you?”
“B-but I’m sure you’ll all do fine!”
“And if you don’t, we’ll just make it more fun for us! Nyahahaha!”
With that, they finally retreated a few paces, beyond the lingering heat of the dying fire and the blood smell on the pleasant island breeze. It seemed you all wouldn’t have the same luxury…
Did you really need to investigate the dead body of your comrade? However distant she may have been towards you, drawing close to her dead body was not a pleasant thought. But if you had to find her killer, surely you couldn’t all afford to turn away.
What about the other dead body, of the strange resident here? Their murder apparently didn’t matter—at least, as far as your lives in this game were concerned. But was it really entirely unrelated to Atsuko’s demise? Even if it was, wouldn’t you prefer to know which of you had been so ready to kill another humanlike, if not human, being?
But there was an entire island here as well, and you could only guess how long the killer had to disperse any clues elsewhere. Not to mention, Fenna must have been out there somewhere still. Perhaps anyone less prepared to examine freshly dead bodies could search the other sands instead.
However you sliced it, it was time to act—before you could lose any more of your nerve.
