Memory 36, 37, 38, Skill 9

[thinkoutsidethebox]

Sealing Kumasawa and Gohda's rooms in the guesthouse. [EP5] Form of a miniature goblet, with a slightly less miniature glass vial. Fill the goblet and drink. 2/3 drinks remaining.

"After all, it was an unsettling night, and a massive amount of gold had just been discovered. Many sorts of crimes might have occurred. ......Where there is a detective, there will be a crime. I foresaw that some kind of crime would take place, so I used this to seal away people whose alibis might otherwise be lost."
Erika held a small, folded piece of brown paper high in the air.
"After I watched Kumasawa-san, who returned to the guesthouse with me, say goodnight and enter the waiting room, I used this to seal the door. Then, in the morning, when the crime was discovered and caused a big uproar, I immediately went to check Kumasawa-san's waiting room, where I confirmed that the seal was still set. Therefore, I can prove Kumasawa-san's alibi!"

[...]

"Gohda-san holed up in the servant room right after reaching the guesthouse. I sealed him up in the same way. Then, when Rosa-san returned at 1:00 AM, I happened to notice her when I stepped out into the corridor. I let Gohda-san, who was still in the servant room, know this."
"At that moment, the seal was doing just fine, so from the time we arrived at the guesthouse until 1:00 AM, Gohda-san never left the servant room. And afterwards, he was with me in the lounge until 3:00 AM. And after 3:00 AM, I was on the second floor, so I can guarantee that Gohda-san didn't come up to the second floor."

Solving the epitaph with Battler. [EP5] Form of a small hand mirror with a dark gray casing. 6/7 views remaining.

My beloved hometown, the sweetfish river running through it.
You who seek the Golden Land, follow its path downstream and seek the key.
If you follow the river downstream, you will find a village. In the village, look for the shore the two will tell you of. There sleeps the key to the Golden Land.

He who lays hand upon the key shall travel under the rules below.
At the first twilight, you shall lift up as sacrifice the six chosen by the key.
At the second twilight, those who remain shall tear apart the two who are close.
At the third twilight, those who remain shall praise my honorable name on high.
At the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.
At the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.
At the sixth twilight, gouge the belly and kill.
At the seventh twilight, gouge the knee and kill.
At the eighth twilight, gouge the leg and kill.
At the ninth twilight, the witch shall be revived and none shall be left alive.
At the tenth twilight, the journey shall end and you should reach the village of gold.

The witch will praise the wise, and should bestow four treasures.
One shall be, all the gold from the Golden Land.
One shall be, the resurrection of the souls of all the dead.
One shall be, even the resurrection of the lost love.
One shall be, to put the witch to sleep for all time.

Sleep peacefully, my most beloved witch, Beatrice.

"This key points towards a certain group of six people. ......No, we should say it points to a certain group of six things, ......if this doesn't mean a literal command to offer sacrifices. For example, it could be an anagram."
"An anagram? Do you mean playing with letters...?"
Yes, Kyrie-san has been thinking that way ever since that moment...!
"...At the second twilight, there are 'those who remain'. ......Which means that, at the very least, that 'something' has a limited number of characters. You could read it like it's telling you to continue with the remaining characters after the six characters are removed.
"In other words, at the first twilight, we take a list of characters that's longer than six, 'kill' the six that are the key, and then do something with the characters that remain...!"
"............That's right. But, like Kyrie said, what should we kill the characters from? ......We don't know this longer string of characters that we're supposed to be killing from."
At the first twilight, kill the six characters that are the key.

..................At the first twilight.
"......In other words, ...by the time we reach the first twilight, some string of characters already exists? But 'the first twilight' (第一の晩) only has four characters. Is there another way to read it? If we act like Grandfather and read it in English, ......what does 第一の晩 become...? <１ｓｔ−ｎｉｇｈｔ>...? ............"
".........<Good>. That idea of yours isn't bad, Battler-san. ......We can interpret the six sacrifices chosen by the key as a string of six characters. I think it's a very clever concept. That way, the key doesn't necessarily have to be key-shaped."
"I also thought of the possibility that it's an anagram."
"......Come to think of it, you did say something like that before. But in that case, where do we take the six characters out from?"
"That's right. ......Since we're taking six characters out, it must be at least six characters long. How can we read 第一の晩 so that it has more than six characters..."
"If we follow Father's sensibilities...I guess it probably is English after all..."
".........If it looks like we're getting stuck, why don't we move on to the second twilight and look for hints. ......Those who remain shall tear apart the two who are close. ......We can probably think of 'those who remain' as 'the remaining characters after the first six have been taken out'."
"In that case, ......what does it mean by two characters that are close...?"
".........I see. ......I get it, that's what this is about...!"
For example, let's take the following list of nine characters: 123456789.

And then, let's say that the six characters offered as sacrifices are 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

In this case, we erase the aforementioned six characters from 123456789...and get x2x45xxxx.
"So 2, 4, and 5 are left. ......So what?"
"......Oh, ......4 and 5 are close..."
"Yes, I get it!! So the two who are close are..."

x2x45xxxx.
"Yep. There's a gap between 2 and 4, but 4 and 5 are right next to each other. They're the two who are close...!"
".........<Good>. Well done, Battler-san. We can't tell whether 'tear apart' means to crush 4 and 5, or to put a gap between them, but I think that's a good observation."
"Then what do you think about the third twilight, those who remain shall praise my honorable name on high?"
".........Since there's a good chance that we're playing with letters, there's a possibility that this is also playing with letters. ......'The characters that remain shall praise my honorable name on high'."
"Hmmmmm...... That's tough.........What could it mean...?"
".........Does anyone know? .........I think I do."
"Huh? What is it? Tell me...!"
"......Is this also...an anagram?"
".........Once again, <Good>. ...Battler-san, you're a pretty clever thinker."
"By anagram, you mean playing with letters, right? ......That means......"
"In other words, maybe it means that you can make some kind of word by changing the order of the remaining letters."
"Yeah. ......If so, ..................This theory might be a little rash, ...but maybe the original list of characters that the first twilight is taken out of is 11 characters long."
".........Well done again. I reached the same conclusion."
"Wh, why's that? Why do you think there are 11 characters?!"
".........We think that 'killing a single sacrifice' means 'crushing a single character'. If we interpret the 'tear apart' of the second twilight to mean adding a gap between two characters, then there are 11 characters total. If 'tear apart' means to crush those two characters, then we can assume that there are 13 characters."
"......After all, from the fourth twilight to the eighth twilight, the word 'kill' appears five times. And then, on the ninth twilight, it's written that none will be left alive."
"If we ignore the part about the witch reviving for now, I figured that after crushing the first six, separating the characters that are close, and then crushing five more of them......there should be no characters left."
So that makes 6+5, or 11 characters.

If tearing apart the two who are close in the second twilight means to kill both of them, that makes 6+2+5, or 13 characters.

There's a chance that the word which means 第一の晩 has 11 or 13 characters......
".........Wonderfully done. That's the exact same theory I thought of. ......It looks like you were gifted with a lot of little gray cells just like me, Battler-san."
"Hey, quit it. Just doing what comes naturally."

[...]

"Anyway, ......until we figure out the first twilight, we'll have to give up on the rest."

We tried looking at it from several different angles, but in the end, we got stuck there and made no further advances.
"Mmph, ...fwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh......"

Maria let out an extra-large yawn.
This caused several other people to yawn.
...We had been using our heads so much that everyone had gotten a little sleepy.

Jessica, who had been silent and looking displeased the whole time, quickly stood up.
"......I'm going upstairs with Maria. We'll watch TV or something."
"Okay... I'll go up too. Hey, why don't we all play cards upstairs?"

When George proposed this, Maria completely forgot about that big yawn of hers and started jumping around, insisting that she wanted to play cards.
Judging by the clock, it was already 10:00 at night.
It was already about that time you normally take a bath and get ready for sleep.

Even the adults seemed pretty weary from traveling.
We decided to continue this later and went our separate ways...
"Will you play with us too, Erika-chan? Cards?"
".........I appreciate the sentiment. I overstepped my bounds a little, forgetting that I'm a simple guest. I'd like to take it easy and rest for the night. .........I'd almost forgotten that I was just in an accident."
"Seriously. You're in such high spirits it's hard to believe you almost drowned."
"*giggle*. That's youth for you. Still, I enjoyed it. I think we've taken a big step in our reasoning thanks to you. If I find the gold, I'll let you have about a million yen worth."
"Wahahaha! Can't you at least offer the poor girl a hundred million! Uhahaha!"
"No need to bother. I'm only interested in solving the riddle. ......Well then, if you'll excuse me. ......Good night."
"Yeah, 'night."
"Oh, you aren't going upstairs, Battler-kun?"
"......I'm getting a bit interested here. I'll think things through here just a bit longer. If I can just figure out the list of characters that marks the first twilight, I'll bet the road before me will open up all at once..."
Everyone went up to the second floor one by one.

Only Rosa oba-san remained behind, cleaning up the coffee cups everyone had been drinking out of.
Kyrie-san and some others had offered to help, but since Rosa had refused this, she was washing them all alone.

Since I'd just been treated to such delicious coffee, I decided to help too.
......I wasn't just doing it because I felt obligated.
I wanted to keep discussing the epitaph with someone.
".........The first twilight...the first twilight. ......Gah. Rosa oba-san, have you thought of some list of characters or a word?"
"Nope... I don't have a clue. .........But instead of the first twilight, it's the tenth twilight that bugs me."
"The tenth twilight...? What about it?"
"Well, .........the word 'Golden Land' appears several times, right?"
"Yeah, it does."
"Why is it......that only on the tenth twilight do we read it as 'ougon no kyou'...no, 'ougon no sato', instead of 'ougon kyou'? It's written as '黄金の郷' (ougon no sato) instead of '黄金郷' (ougon kyou). ...It bugged me a little that this is the only place it's written as '黄金の郷'."
"............You're right. ...No mistake. Even though it's written as 黄金郷 everywhere else..."

Even though the rest are all 黄金郷, the tenth twilight alone has a 'の' in it...making it 黄金の郷 and possibly changing the pronunciation of the 'Land' in Golden Land from 'kyou' to 'sato'.
Could it have some kind of special meaning.........?

..................
"Still, ......you and that Erika-chan girl are incredible. The way you think really is flexible. ...I'm already an old lady, and my mind just doesn't work that fast. That theory about the six chosen by the key signifying six characters to be removed was very impressive."
"After hearing that, I can't see it as being any other way, but before then, I didn't think it was like that at all... My thickheadedness is getting annoying."
"That's not true. You think in a very flexible way, Rosa oba-san. This thing about '黄金の郷' that you found might be a key to something."
"Not at all. My mind's very stiff. ......Up until now, I've always thought that this 'first twilight' was nothing more than a place one-tenth of the way on a road to the Golden Land."
"......What's this? Sounds interesting. Could you let me hear?"
"*giggle*. ......After all, in the line before the first twilight, it's written 'you should travel to the Golden Land', right? Then you travel for ten days, so I thought the rest was a story about that journey."
"......A journey............Yeah. ............"
"Then the journey begins, and when you set up camp at the first twilight, you offer the six as sacrifices. ......So, where is that place? How many kilometers from the starting point...? That's all... Don't tell anyone, okay? I'm a dummy, so I've always read the '郷' of 黄金の郷' as 'kyou'.
......Look, when you say 'kyou', it sounds like Kyoto, right? So I thought there might be some kind of secret hidden at the end of the first tenth of the road from Father's hometown to Kyoto..."
"Are you kidding? That idea is totally clever. .........The very first place on a journey that lasts ten days.........The name of that place might be the key......"
"In order to figure that out, you'd have to know both the start point and the end point. ......I know the start point. I know the hometown Father loved. The place Father spent his time when he was a boy really is far away."
"......But the problem is the goal...the Golden Land. Where in the world could it be? ......If we don't know that, my theory gets us nowhere. I've been stuck at this spot for a long time, but after listening to your reasoning today, I've realized what an embarrassing mistake I've been making."
".........No, ...I think that's still an interesting idea. ..................A start and a goal, a ten day journey. ...And the place reached at the very first twilight......"
"Believe it or not, I think you might solve this one easily, Battler-kun. ......If you do solve it with your aunt's hint, share some with me. Even 5% would be great. It's a promise♪"

Despite being my aunt, she gave me a wink which would've made a man's heart jump.
As I helped her wash the coffee cups, ......I kept pondering the epitaph's riddle silently.........
......After I finished helping Rosa oba-san and went into the corridor on my way to the bathroom, I saw Erika unlocking the door to a room on the way there.
"......Your room is on the second floor, right? I was sure you'd gone upstairs and had fallen asleep by now."
"............I was just searching for something. ......I thought it might be here."
"Searching for something......?"
Erika unlocked the door and opened it.
A dusty smell drifted out...
It was the archive.

The gaps between the bookshelves were too small for this to be called a library room.
This was obviously a room made for storing books, not reading them.
"......So you're searching for a book?"
"Not necessarily a book, ......but materials. There's something I've just got to look up."
"............You're looking for something having to do with the epitaph's riddle...? Pretty admirable that you haven't given up yet. I guess 20 billion yen is pretty enticing."

I hadn't given up either.
Apparently, we were both bad at giving up......
"You're joking. ......I'm only interested in riddle-solving. I'm only looking for the gold because I want proof that my reasoning was correct. Even if I found it, I wouldn't pocket it for myself, so don't worry."
......She immediately cast it aside, saying that she just liked solving riddles and had no interest at all in the gold.

At first, I was pretty sure she was a weird one, and it looks like that impression was spot on.
As Erika slowly circled the bookshelves, she started searching for the book she was after...
"I'm also in the middle of trying to solve the epitaph. .........Oh yeah, just a second ago, I heard something interesting from Rosa oba-san which might be a hint about the first twilight."
".........Let me hear it."

Erika asked this without stopping her search or even turning to face me.
"In the line before the first twilight, it says one who lays hand upon the key shall do so and so."
".........He who lays hand upon the key shall travel under the rules below."
"Whoa... You've already got it memorized? Guess I shouldn't be surprised..."
"And what about that?"
"......Yeah. You should travel to the Golden Land, right? Apparently, this made Rosa oba-san think about the tenth twilight...in other words, going on a ten day-long journey from the beloved homeland to the Golden Land..."
"Actually, I already noticed that myself. The place you reach on the first day of the ten day journey. ......That's where you offer the sacrifices from."
"Y, ...yeah, that's what Rosa oba-san thought of too. I also think it's an interesting theory. ......The place you reach on the first day of the ten day journey. That bit of land, or else the place name, might be a key..."
".........I also guessed that the place name might be a key. That's why I'm looking for materials. I want to turn my guess into certainty."
"What is it.........that you're looking for?"
Then, Erika's hand suddenly stopped, ......and she slowly pulled it out...

Then, as she dusted it off, she finally looked at me and spoke.
"It's an atlas."

~AND THEN THEY SOLVED IT~ If anyone actually sees this memory I will have to explain the actual solution to you.

Watching the lovers' trials. Yawn. [EP6] Form of a palm sized teddy bear. Give it a squeeze to get your memory. 1/2 uses remaining.

Oh god do I have to find all the script for this. No. Includes Battler's fantasy scenes of George killing Eva, Jessica killing Kyrie, Kanon killing Rosa and Shannon killing Maria, and chick-Beato killing Natsuhi, while Erika watches from the meta world.

--

Eidetic memory. Form of a nice ripe pear.

Erika has a photographic memory. And her hearing ability is on par with a tape recorder.

SIMPLE ENOUGH.