Vol 2 Chapter 1 (2/2)
”A week later, the group headed towards the Narakubo area in Furuoka Town”
As the screen faded back in, the school scenery was replaced by that of a mountainous forest amidst the midsummer heat This was no doubt the Narakubo area
I knehere Furuoka Toas It's about 20 kilometers north of Kamiyama City It was once a prosperous town due to a rich deposit of lead or some other metal in the mines nearby, but like any other town that solely relies on one industry to prosper, it has since fallen into hard times once the mine was exhausted But what of the Narakubo area?
That was the topic Ibara and Satoshi+ were discussing
”fuku-chan, you heard of Narakubo?”
Unsurprisingly, Satoshi+ of course knew
”Yup, it used to be thethere is inconvenient, at its height it was pretty prosperous”
He then went on to list a few faers
” These were the sort of celebrities that they ed to invite to perform in the area”
Ibara looked a little surprised So did I, for the names Satoshi+ listed were quite prominent
”However,”
As Satoshi+ was about to continue, Chitanda cut him short
”It's about to start”
As the picture roup of students Naturally they were in their appropriate casual wear for such hot weather Each carried their own rucksack, though we had no idea as inside of them
Yaht and said, ”Sure is hot We've been walking for some time, are we there yet?”
Sugiuess”
”That's what you said a while ago Darn, it's so hot, I'm tired already”
”Well, you're not the only one who's hot, so hurry up and keep walking”
So said Kaitou And they all began to walk again, with the ca them
The Narakubo area indeed looked like it was situated deep within thethe road, they were largely covered up by the forest Alimpse of the streets of Furuoka Town below the ns of dae The asphalt on the pedestrian sidewalk looked as if it was about to come off in pieces the size of fists Whether it was due to such poor walking conditions, the ca If the actors were amateurs, then so was the cameraman Even a layperson likein a hard to see visual
The shot then cut to another angle froroup, straightened his glasses and pointed ahead
”We're here That's Narakubo!”
Everyone followed Sugi the camera, and a basin within the mountain was shown On top of the basin was a ruin
For so in a modern city, to think that such a ruin could exist 20 kilole houses scattered with broken s and roofs in disrepair Some were virtually collapsed If this place was the ore arding any signs of human presence, these houses were now surrounded by a thick layer of ivy An enanboard could be seen under what used to be a shophouse, further e the loneliness of the deserted townscape I see, Sugimura's words weren't
The ca to do with the cameraman's inexperience, or perhaps it was done to conceal the actors' crappy performances At any rate, the next visual shoas quite intense
Even the actors looked stunned by the scenery As the ca, so that line wasn't scripted
But then, the scripted dialogue resuain
”I see This is a good place to collect material,” Said Katsuda, who took out an instant ca away Senoue took a notebook out and began writing After a brief pause, Kaitou began instructing in a loud voice, ”Anye need to find a place to stay for the night We'll start with the research after that”
”How about there then?”
Kounosu pointed to one of the ruins in Narakubo As the ca could be seen, seely a theatre
”We should be safe from the rain if it's there”
”I see Then let's go”
The six of thean to walk down the slope, and the scene faded out
Upon fading in, the screen noed the entrance of the theatre The group stood before its two glass doors and looked up at the building The caonally upwards, the theatre felt surreal
The calass door, and each of them followed him into the theatre The last one to enter was Kounosu, with her eyes looking down Sheabout this”
She then entered the theatre, and as the six of them entered the darkness within, the scene ended
Both Satoshi+ and Ibara raised their voices unexpectedly Satoshi+ looked delighted, while Ibara looked displeased
”Aha, a mansion mystery, huh?”
”Hmph, just a mansion mystery?”
The next scene resumed within the mansion sorry, I mean theatre As there would be no electricity in an abandoned village, it was dark inside the building Cos outside, which could be clearly seen under the suh not bad enough to not be able towason it as they walked
”It's full of dust,” Yamanishi+ muttered as she swept the dust off her clothes and fiddled her hair The blurry visuals probably had so beside her, Katsuda looked up and said,”Seeh”
Senouchi, still holding the notebook in her hand, turned and asked Sugiot quite the theatre built in these mountains, haven't they?”
”The ore mine was profitable, after all In the past anyway And it's exactly because the mine is so deep in thelike this to entertain themselves”
”Ah,” whispered Satoshi+, who had an interest in such trivia, and said to ”
It's not as if ere expecting soin with anyway
Kaitou then sta a loud noise that echoed across the hall As I wondered as going on, the ca besides their feet, which seeht there was It looked like solass
”While we're going to stay here for the night”
Kaitou raised his brow and continued, ”It's probably not safe right here, with all the glass shards around”
The camera then moved around While it was hard to see, if this was the theatre, then they would be in the entrance lobby Frohts of stairs and one rooain, the camera moved up to show the second floor It seeimura and Katsuda then spoke respectively
”Guess we'll have to find so then”
”You're right, before it gets dark”
Nodding in agreement, Kaitou looked around and said, ”Let's split up to search then Is there a map we could use?”
”How about this one?”
Kounosu beckoned them to come to the side of the entrance, and the movie cut to the next shot
The following shot showed aat As it was dark and hard to see, soht
”Aha, a map!”
Satoshi+ exclaian to copy that h the details were hard to read, as the screen was big, the words were still legible As the map was shown for about 30 seconds, Satoshi+ was able to finish copying in time
As shown on the map, the theatre was composed of two storeys In front of the entrance was the entrance lobby, where the group was right now Next to the lobby was the office Going further in was a ith a set of doors, which led to a hall, and naturally a stage at its end On both sides of the hall were two corridors, with two control rooms on each side At the end of those two corridors were the backstage areas On the right side of the audience hall was the ”Right Stage” and on the left, the ”Left Stage”
Two flights of stairs on either side of the lobby led to the second floor The stairs on the right led to the lighting roo equipe Above the office was the equip room was the audio room As both sets of stairs led to the saet to the equipment room via both sides
The roup should have seen
The screen then panned towards Kaitou as he spoke
”Then let's split up and have a look inside”
”Won't that be dangerous?” asked Katsuda
”There's nothing but ruins here, what's so dangerous about it?” asked Kaitou
Senoue then asked, ”But, if we're going to enter the rooms, won't we need a key?”
Kounosu answered in place of Kaitou, ”That won't be a problem There's bound to be one”
She then entered the office next to the lobby Incredibly, the office door itself wasn't locked The camera followed Kounosu into the office, where she looked around two to three ti by the wall
”Here we go”
She then exited the office with one set of keys, leaving the other set inside the box, which the ca was dark, on the key holder was clearly written ”Master Key”
”With this, we should be able to look around the building”
Kounosu returned to the hall and showed the set of keys to Kaitou, who nodded and took out one key from the set
”Then, let's each take one and see if we can find any rooms that we could stay in It doesn't matter if we end up in separate rooms Also have a look for rooms where it's safe to start a fire or clear froer”
Everyone then took one key fro, all the keys were taken
”You know,” Satoshi+ said while s, ”Realistically, ould ever think of everyone splitting up andon their own in such a situation?”
”Isn't entering an abandoned house in a ruin unrealistic enough? So what's wrong with this scene?”
Satoshi+ s Since if they didn't split up, ould have no uaranteed one, after all”
”In other words,”
”So with you that by the tiathered, they'll be one person short”
Sitting next to Satoshi+, Ibara looked atabout irrelevant stuff and watch the h I wasn't the one that started the conversation
The screen then showed eachtheinto the darkness of the building one by one First it was Kaitou, followed by Sugimura, Yamanishi+, Senoue, Katsuda and Kounosu No one was left inside the lobby The screen continued showing the e off
Within the darkness, the narrator spoke again,
”It was here that the incident happened”
”Figures,” said Satoshi+
Shut up! Ibara glared at us again
The next scene opened at the entrance lobby
Again there was nobody
Kounosu was the first to return froht
She was followed by Yamanishi+, who came out of the left corridor
Katsuda too eed from the left corridor, who then asked the two that arrived before hio?”
Yamanishi+ replied with a sulky expression, ”It was full of shatteredto sweep them away”
Kounosu too shook her head
”I see It's the same here”
Senoue then descended from the stairs on the left As she approached them, she made an 'X' with her hands to motion that her search was also unsuccessful
Katsuda looked upwards, and the caaze Thereupon, the equip theof that roo upwards, ”Sugioes your end?”
Sugih it's surprisingly pleasant inside, there's not much we could use to make fire with”
”I see Anyway, come down first”
”Okay”
Sugimura promptly came downstairs There were now five people in the lobby It seemed all but one of them had returned I see, so the ”victim” has been decided Yamanishi+ spoke
”Where's Kaitou-kun?”
Katsuda shook his head
”Since we're all here, let's go look for hiht?”
He pointed toward the right corridor The rest all nodded in turn With Katsuda leading, the group entered the right corridor, with the caht went di could be seen
Someone turned on a hand torch and illuminated a door in front of the corridor, which Katsuda opened It was a control room, with a line of mirrors and a bunch of abandoned costumes scattered around There was no one inside
”That's strange”
”Could he be in the backstage area?”
Heeding that suggestion, they all went deeper into the corridor, which was even darker
The hand torch was turned on again, where a door leading to the Right Stage was shoith a sign saying ”Staff Entry Only” Katsuda tried turning the doorknob, but it wouldn't open
”What's wrong?”
”It won't open Maybe it's locked”
”What do we do?”
” There's another set of et them?”
Without knoas being addressed, so could be heard; it sounded like two people had run off to get the key The next cut showed the door lock being turned opened by the key, and the group entering upon opening the door
Inside the Left Stage was aAs the curtain was drawn open, the sunlight outside shone in And in the centre of the sunlit roo down on the floor Naturally, it was Kaitou
”Kaitou!”
Sugiimura knelt down before Kaitou and tried to lift Kaitou up, when he felt so in his palms The camera moved to shoas within his palht, it seeimura's palms were quite stained He muttered, ”Blood”
Soirls standing by the door Yamanishi+ was lost for words as she covered her ripped her fists Blood stains were flowing out from the abdomen of the collapsed Kaitou, whose eyes were closed It was just as well, as his crappy performance would have been exposed if he chose to have his eyes opened The camera then panned towards Kaitou's side, which showed his ar helped raise the tension as the camera slowly revealed within the severed arm was the key that Kaitou had taken with him
”Ahh”
So the scene It was Chitanda
Back to the movie, Katsuda yelled, ”Kaitou! Dammit! Somebody help!”
He quickly stood up and headed toward theto try and open it, which was designed to be opened while pulling upwards But as thehad not been used for so many years, it didn't seeainst thefrath to pull the ard, which created a loud squeaking noise Upon finally opening the , he stuck his body out and looked outside The ca but a thick layer of wild grass
Katsuda returned inside and headed toward the stage The screen suddenly went dark while going froe; it was clear it was following Katsuda, who ran straight toward the Left Stage, where he cae and the left corridor was blocked by some boards of squared timber
”No way”
The screen faded to black
And then,
The ht there
””
We waited for a little longer, but the screen didn't come back on
”Huh, it's over?” Ibara whispered in an annoyed tone
” Seems so”
As if on cue, upon Satoshi+'s response, adraards As though trying to stop the screen fro, Chitanda stretched her arms forward pitifully
”Eh? Eh? But it's not over!”
”Maybe they're having soh a voice from behind instantly replied, ”No, that is incorrect”
As we turned around, Irisu had already exited the control roo the videotape in her hand
”The tape indeed ends here”
She said in a calm tone Of course she would know exactly when the tape ends Satoshi+ asked, ”So, is that the end of the story, if that's where you intended it to end?”
”Of course not”
Then it means that this tape was incomplete I've never heard of a movie previehere people are invited to watch a movie that has yet to be completed
Muttering under oing on? This 'preview' isn't gonna end here, is it?”
Irisu was constantly looking at me as she nodded
”Of course not But before that, I would like to hear so from all of you What did you think of the raphy?”
We exchanged glances with each other I didn't know about Chitanda, but I was sure the rest of us were in agreement Ibara replied on our behalf, ”To be very honest, we thought it was crudely done”
That ansas to be expected
”That hat I thought as well You may probably have known this already, but the Kanya Festival is a festival mainly for the arts-related clubs There was no place for activities by individual classes However, our class was not content with that We could not enlist the help of people with the required skills, as they're already busy with their own club activities, but despite that, we still decided toof our own We merely wanted to show people the result of our passion and hard work”
She described such a bitter reality in a plain manner devoid of any emotion
However, were they satisfied with just that? As I was thinking, Irisu spoke again
”I thought this was good enough, as everyone is enjoying what they're doing and h the end product will end up being laughed at, they wouldn't be too concerned at all, as they're easily satisfied I know it's quite silly, so I would please ask that you turn a blind eye to how crudely they made the movie”
”So it doesn't matter whether it's crudely done or not?”
Irisu nodded in answer to Ibara's question
”It's not really too much to ask, is it? If it's well made, they would also be satisfied on a different level Yet the essence of their objective remains the sa cala of the movie?”
After thinking for a while, Satoshi+ replied, ”The movie wouldn't be completed”
”Exactly And we are not satisfied with that However, we cannot complete the movie As you have seen, the location for the o there to shoot during summer vacation”
”Are you having soraphy?” Chitanda asked anxiously
”While that's a proble into consideration our traveling budget and script progress, our schedule was to filoing once again this Sunday to complete the movie”
”But so else happened?”
Faced with my cold remark, Irisu responded truthfully, ”Yes, we never expected assigning work to an unskilled a a reed that it would be asuch a script Only one person aou Mayu She had soa, so we entrusted her to come up with a script for a one-hour movie”
For someone who's never written any stories before, I had no idea how tough such an assign her brow She too had experience writing ou
”Hongou was aed to co any contact with mystery novels before However, she was at her limit, and by the time she wrote up to the part where you saw in the movie, she collapsed”
Collapsed, asped and asked, ”What happened to her?”
”Gastritis fro serious, it's not possible for her to continue her task, so we're seeking out a replacement writer”
Sounds like replacement on the battlefield
”You're not seriously asking us to do that, are you?”
Taking over the role of screenwriter for them?
Irisu laughed softly and said, ”Oh, no We wouldn't impose on you so far I merely invited you to a preview, and would like to ask one question of you Who did you think was the killer?”
Come to think of it, thea detective character despite this being a mystery movie That was probably one of the reasons why the ress The second reason was probably due to every actor being assigned si unable to determine ill play the detective However While I was still far from convinced, Ibara was the first to reply
”But Sempai, surely the movie must include scenes for us to deduce who the killer is before we could guess?”
Irisu shook her head and said, ”You need not worry about that Hongou said she had already written the outline of the resolution before she collapsed, and we should be able to get that part filmed in time”
Satoshi+ inquired further, ”But if it's a script written by a beginner in detective fiction, surely she would have left clues before co to the resolution, or it would seem quite aard”
”That has also been taken care of Sheher wits had to offer She did say she did some research into detective fiction after all I believe she stayed true to both Knox and Chandler's Ten Commandments and Van Dine's Twenty Rules” [3]
Chitanda looked puzzled at the mention of the Ten Commandments; I probably did as well
”Ten Commandments? As in 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain'?”
Why did she have to quote such a minor Commandment of all Commandments? Satoshi+ answered confidently at Chitanda's question, ”No, that's Moses' Ten Co about Ronald Knox's Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction here, rules like 'No Chinaou-santhe audience a fair chance at solving the mystery”
Why can't a Chinaman appear in a story anyway? Does their appearance, noto do with politics or soain, these rules are often seen in science fiction as well Though I don't think it has anything to do with fair play I wonder if I could find the answer if I researched Knox?
As I was pondering these questions, Irisu concluded, ”In other words, all the clues have been shown so who do you think the killer is?”
Asking us to figure out who the killer was in an abandoned village deep within the mountains, huh? This sounds ridiculous
Satoshi+, Ibara and Chitanda all exchanged glances with each other
”Who, you're asking me? That's kind of hard Conclusions cannot be made from the database”
”You're right, I'h I do suspect a few things”
”Um, is Kaitou-san confirmed dead already in the movie?”
Upon asking all the questions they wanted to ask, they all turned to look at htly as their gazes were fixed upon lare and said, ” What?”
”Nothing, I was just thinking this was perhaps a job for Houtarou”
Satoshi+ smiled impudently as usual
”What job are you talking about?”
”The detective, of course”
I could totally i then, which Satoshi+ was quick to describe
”You look as though you don't like that”
I nodded silently As a nory saver, there's no way I would ever getout of the ordinary I feel troubled by being so overestimated In response to my expression,
”It probably h attention to the movie,” Chitanda interrupted with her voice raised, ”So why don't atch it one more time?”
Is she serious?
As though sensingyou for an opinion You don't have to be too serious about it”
”Is that so? Then I think Yamanishi+'s the killer”
Chitanda turned her head to me and asked, ”How come?”
”Because she had a terrible attitude?”
”Oreki!”
Ibara scolded h I was hardly intimidated Ibara's only scary when you've truly uess here
”Then Katsuda, he looked quite muscular”
Satoshi+ sighed and crossed his arms
”Her about this? Even I feel like saying 'Stop saying strange stuff already'”
It's not exactly strange, but that itself won't do, as they don't see with Irisu
”Can I ask you so?”
”Go ahead”
”Why are you asking an outsider like us? If this question was conceived by Class 2-F, surely it ought to be figured out by someone from Class 2-F as well?”
As with before, Irisu nodded and replied, ”We did discuss this question aestions from outside No matter what theories we proposed, ere still clueless in answering it Like I said before, only those with the necessary skills can do the job required”
”Not even you could do it?”
”Unfortunately, no More than anyone, I too would like to figure out who the killer is Moreover, I have to take care of the fil operation, so I'm quite short on time here”
”In that case, why didn't you start aneith so other than mystery then?”
It was starting to become like a cross-exah she still maintained her stern voice
”I was not present in the original planning stages, as I happened to be in Hokkaido for the past three weeks I only heard about the proble to Kareed to try and solve this proble, I would not have agreed to make a mystery movie”
Then it has not