Vol 3 Chapter 6 (1/2)
A liar is the end of a human
1
Now then, the course of events had caused me to betray Hime-chan, but -- now then now then, what to do Well, of course, that strategy called forviolence, but now -- a nohich I alking around a co shi+ogi-chan to Aikawa-san's place -- was a very half-assed situation
In other words, right now, I could go either way I could lead shi+ogi-chan to a completely irrelevant place, and I could also head toward the dean's room with Aikawa-san, where Hime-chan had headed If I wanted to betray I could betray, and if I wanted to penetrate I could penetrate This was a beautifully set up case of two options on the extremes
That said--
”No matter what I choose, the conclusion is the same”
”Did you say so?”
”No, not really”
”More i? Yukariki ran in a completely different direction, I think”
”That was a fake Hiet beat up quickly”
”Hmm is that so”
Despite the future being set, the reason I avering in i-chan I was able to settle her down so soers, so acting distant is quite ordinary, but so about it was unnatural
And there was the matter of Tamamo-chan Tamamo-chan, as brutally killed and then used as a tool I was noalking beside that person who used her as a tool I do not think I would have ever been able to like Tamamo-chan, but still
And then the i-chan was behind it? At the very least, I currently suspected her Like Taami Noa had been evenIf that was a rebellion by the strategist, then was this Hagihara shi+ogi, walking next to ist she knew everything and remained silent nonetheless
I had nothing to back up either thought
Phew Thinking began to exhaustto betray At this rate, I felt like I could beco on Aikawa-san sounded like fun And Aikawa-san was basically the sai-chan's hair is so beautiful, too I wonder if she would be angry if I touched it
”What are you staring at me for? How impolite”
shi+ogi-chan stopped walking, and turned tolook She see (?) intent Nevertheless, human relations valued first impressions heavily
”No, not really It is nothing”
”Oh, really?”
”Yes, really But shi+ogi-chan”
Your hair is beautiful, I was about to say, but I caught i-chan, she must have heard such praise many tinoringat e, pathetic boy In that case, I would require an opinion from a different perspective
”Yes, what is it?”
”shi+ogi-chan, you have big breasts”
shi+ogi-chan tripped
It was the first tiround
shi+ogi-chan stood up with her face colared forcefully, but her ain and she ended up not saying anything, instead whirling her pretty hair around and strutting straight down the hallway H to, anyways)
Oh well Hu up
”Ah, yes,” after soi-chan said, as if she had just re so to call you with is inconvenient, so if you would please tell me”
”Ahh I have given my real name--”
Then
As I was about to answer absent-rounds We were currently on the second floor so ere not that high -- not that high, and that was the reason Not that high, and that was reason that I saw Yukariki Ichihis
””
Why was she there? Enough ti I could not think of the reason for her to be wandering about in such an odd place Hime-chan soon disappeared as
” Is there so?”
”No, umm umm”
Could it be that she orried about ain, and that hy? She had becoer in the courtyard, so she was looking for shi+ogi-chan and I?
What a -- what a botherso a busybody Even if I have a latent ability to gather the strange, the weird, and the insane to h to fret over to this extent I even said to leave it to me How much does she need to be like that? shi+t I had finally become irritated
”Um, I want to know your name”
” Yeah Name name, name”
shi+ogi-chan had not noticed Hime-chan yet If she did, she would certainly jui-chan to deal with Aikawa Jun Hime-chan, too, had not noticed us If she had, she would not be wandering around there
Then then I shall continue to be a scammer
”Then lether see outside ”I will give you a hint, so shi+ogi-chan can try to guess my name”
”Oh That's a good idea I love that stuff”
I hate them, but of course I do not say that
”How many hints?”
”Three Three ti as it is not directly asking for ”
”Me”
And then shi+ogi-chan thought for a moment
She forgot about Hiht
”Then, question one Tell me all of your nicknames”
”Nicknames?”
”Yukariki calls you Master, Overkilled Red calls you Ii-tan, right? Those”
”Ahh The aliases I am called currently are Master and Ii-tan, and otherwise Ikkun The letter I Ii-nii Ino Inosuke, User of Nonsense and Scammer, I think”
”Most of that isn't very appealing is ”I” the keyword?”
”Is that question?”
”No, just a confirmation In that case, why does Yukariki call you Master?”
”Who knows I would like to know that myself Maybe because she is the apprentice of the user of nonsense?”
”Huh well then, next question If you romanize your name, how many vowels and consonants do you have?”
Woah This was just play to keep shi+ogi-chan's attention, but I had to stop an adood questions That she did not ask for the nu
”Eight vowels, seven consonants”
”Hmm, I see Then the last question If you are to use 1 for あ, 2 for い, 3 for う and then 46 for ん, ould be the sum for your name?”
I felt like she just checkmated me She thinks fast
”134”
”What a strange name”
shi+ogi-chan laughed in amusement
”Who knows Perhaps it could be a fake name I actually am proud of the fact that I have only told my real name once”
”Is that so?”
”Yeah And, although you are probably thinking correctly, you should not call me by that name There are three who have called ”
” Just three?”
”One was Ii Harukana That would be my little sister She died when two airplanes ran into each other One was Kunagisa To, dead but not dead One was Ookoro That was well, what shall we say After having her body fiddled with in human experiments, she burned to death in crimson fire”
”Because they called you by your name?”
”I think so”
” Then what shall I call you?”
”Whatever you please”
I said, and I glanced out theAlright, Hi anywhere, either It seeht
What was I doing? I was still in li or not, yet I spontaneously decided to let Hie I even spoke unnecessarily
I even had to reotten about them, too
No
I had never forgotten
I did not need to reht of them
”Ah, speaking of which, excuse me for a moment”
shi+ogi-chan took that thing that looked like a cell phone from her pocket, the same type that Tamamo-chan had carried
”Yes -- yes I aained an accomplice Yes, leave it to me -- I am currently at --”
Checking in The exchange of information is important to both parties, so this was necessary If soldiers went left and right and did whatever they wanted on the battlefield, there would be no war However, with the dean now dead, as on the receiving end of the co--
”Then excuse me, dean”
Said shi+ogi-chan as she cut her phone
I, of course, hid my surprise from my face However, inside I felt like a ind of confusion Why do things keep giving s to ponder? What'd she just say? Who was she just calling?
For instance, there is sooes by ”dean” -- no, the possibility exists that shi+ogi-chan was acting just now -- but what necessity for acting is there?
Then shi+ogi-chan is not the suspect -- if she does not know of the dean's death Come to think of it, my suspicion of her had neither reason nor evidence I had siht so because the dean had been dismembered like Tamamo-chan But, if I think about it some more--
”shi+ogi-chan This time I will ask the question did you kill Saijou Tamamo?”
”Huh?” said shi+ogi-chan with an utterly shocked look ”Why would I, this Hagihara shi+ogi, need to kill an ally?”
” Well, because You put just her head out in the courtyard”
”Oh please, don't say such weird things I do not have the technique to do such a thing Only Zig Zag could do that”
Ahh, come to think of it, the dean's neck and Tamamo-chan's neck had been cut differently The dean had been abrasively cut -- but Tamamo-chan's neck had a very clean, s The eccentric that could use rope that was only --
”Killing allies is nonsense I si about when I had run over for y”
””
I thought that was odd, too But perhaps there was no helping it given that she is a Strategist It see some human-like attributes You could even say that it is the fault of the Hanging High School, but I felt like there was also so fundamentally off about her, too
However, it is because of this shi+ogi-chan the strategist -- that indeed, to lessly kill an ally -- to reduce the number of pieces is unthinkable Just the way there is no professional who refuses to use knights just because they are useless
In other words, Zig Zag is the extreist, i-chan -- a berserker
Then what happens? The problem about the sealed room The problem about the dismembered body Given the cuts, the dean'sThere is a different suspect shi+ogi-chan -- the reason to suspect her, the killing of Tamamo-chan was not her, so she is iiven that she is already dead
The suspectof which, it is rather suspicious that not a single one has appeared so far If one of thei-chan -- if the strategist shi+ogi-chan was being controlled like a puppet whose neck was hanging fro
The school was in the le
Is -- anticli like that, shi+ogi-chan and I, and Hied into this et aith it, was that what they thought?
Their false hopes -- needed to be corrected
”Is soone quiet”
”No, not really Suddenly going quiet is a hobby of i-chan Let us continue the quiz shi+ogi-chan, do you read mystery novels?”
”For what purpose?”
shi+ogi-chan tilted her head to the side
”Uh,like, killing ti”
”To study fro person than writing,” said Tayama Katai”
”The subtitle being Throriting was quite cool, but you read Tayama Katai?”
”Yes, as is norh school student, no?”
She said it as if it were normal
” Then, a quiz For instance”
I hid the fact that it was the truth froi-chan (of course, I would not tell her that Hime-chan was the person I spoke of), I told her about the dean's dismemberment sealed room mystery The steel door that could not be opened, the corpse inside, dis The double-locked s, the top-most floor The one-way ventilation
” How sii-chan said ”What about that is a quiz?”
”Is it simple?”
Of course, this question was to hear shi+ogi-chan's opinion, but it was also to try to see soi-chan were indeed the suspect However, there was no visible sense of anxiety in shi+ogi-chan She just looked disappointed, having expected a difficult question
”Then, the answer?”
”The door was sii-chan matter-of-factly said ”What you just told in with, but no one ever tried, right? Then, you siht of a sealed room as a sealed room”
Someone once said, When I determine whether this is a sealed room or not, there are two possibilities That it is a sealed room, or that it is not I see, just because it looked like a sealed room did not necessitate that it actually was That was a common deception
If you try to hide a lie with a lie, the lie ends up beco lie froer need to falsify afterwards -- or so? If the door was just closed from the start, and had not been locked, then anyonecould kill the dean Then it being a sealed room was simply our mistake, and--
”No, that is wrong”
If the first person to the scene had been Hii-chan's answer could be correct But there was another, Aikawa Jun It was impossible for Aikawa Jun be there and make such a rookie mistake
”Is that so? Then -- yes The crime may not have taken place there Dismembered, and then from a nook somewhere -- for example the ventilation shaft, it could be thrown in from the adjacent room The ventilation shaft means that you do not need to enter the room, and you can easily tie the hair to the fan”
”But the fan only opens from inside”
”That is why that is an example Even if it is different, a dismembered body can find plenty of nooks and crannies to find its way inside, right? Like a dust chute, or the water works”
”Hmmm”
”Or perhaps just a copy key”
That, too, had no dreae to solve the probles in a story about a person's death is the oddity
In the end, I felt I was at a dead end I even wanted to borrow the paw of a cat Hoould Hi?
Hm?
Just now I felt like I was about to think of so
”Oh well, forget that quiz then I apologize for asking soardless, this school is quite odd”
”Really? I quite like it”
” Have you never thought that you may have lived a normal life?”
”What other life could have satisfied hed ”Just as your Ai of which You went to a norh school?”
”No, I even dropped out of obligatory education And then” she would know about ER3, but I decided it would be better to not bring it up ” well, I took an exam, and now I'm a student at a university”
”Is that the truth?”
”I a I simply did not say the truth”
”If you are trying to fool the other, then are they not the same?”
Ti, a conversation between a strategist and a sca, deceiving, defrauding, exaggerating, covering, and hiding Is there allowed to be a conversation so disjointed?
”shi+ogi-chan, do you have a dream for your future?”
”The future siraduate, I will probably work for Rule”
”Rule hearing that e Liang or Hannibal? I feel like a girl's happiness can be found elsewhere”
”Oh What an archaic opinion Are you telling me to become a housewife?”
”I aoing to a place like that is obviously a path toblessed is in the eye of the beholder -- more importantly”
A pointless buying of time, as we climbed the stairs to the next floor, and then walked down the hall of that floor, I asked shi+ogi-chan But this ti I really wanted to know
”If I were to keep bringing you to Aikawa-san, what do you intend to do? I do not think that a strategist like yourself intends to challenge est without any plan, but I also cannot i with the one-man astro army”
Any physical ainst Aikawa-san And underhandedness and trickery would never reach her either To hurt Aikawa-san, even this scai-chan said, perhaps if she found out that I was atraitor, she may be shocked just a little, but that would soon be transferred to a forward-thinking energy That was how enormous Aikawa-san was
”A strategy -- I have a tactic, at least”
shi+ogi-chan said with confidence
”Overkilled Red est contractor but she is not a contractor that is et”
” Mmhmm”
”Even if ihara shi+ogi Even devils all flee before me I shall put on full display, fair and square, without ht ahead”
Did that o behind Aikawa-san's back? I felt like she has no rear side, no weakness, no hypocrisy, so that would be very difficult--
But then I realized Indeed That sealed roohts returned to that Indeed, no matter how oing against Aikawa Jun Aikawa Jun has no weakness nor hypocrisy -- no i sealed rooeneration old before they are created was Aikawa Jun Whether that sealed roo else did not matter It would never work on Aikawa-san
Yet Aikawa-san had not figured it out yet
”Why?”
Why could that be That was est to not be able to figure that out is theA detective that did not solve a mystery, a serial killer that does not kill people, a user of nonsense that works for others, it was filled with paradox
Then -- no, because That disa zag'd
Reconstructing close similar and then compilation
And then si more important The falseness that would bloay the sealed room I arrived at a fundamental place when I reversed from the truth
The content of shi+ogi-chan's response when I asked about Tamamo-chan's death
'Oh please, don't say such weird things I do not have the technique to do such a thing Only 'Zig Zag' could do that' -- 'Oh please, don't say such weird things'
As if I hadthat I should obviously know Co That feeling ofthat is born fro -- that if the third-year student shi+sei Yuma did not exist--
Already
If I already know Zig Zag -- but not a reason that I did not notice, but rather a reason that I could not notice, then -- a lie
That I was deceived
”-- No way”
That voice was notbehind me, and -- her face was ashen Her eyes were faded She had an expression of shock -- of despair I could not understand why she hts temporarily ceased
” What is it, shi+ogi-chan?”
”That quiz -- the dean?”
”--!”
Extreured it out
Indeed, the truth that someone of ist of this school, Hagihara shi+ogi could not She had backtracked from my words, and from my attitude as I nonchalantly posed the quiz to her -- and recognized that an incident had occurred, and recognized what the incident was Reverse engineering is the expertise of strategists Despite having realized tiist -- I still underestimated it With just that little shred of inforrasp the entirety
Such intellect
Such sad, unfortunate intellect
”Wa- no But -- the dean, the wireless”
shi+ogi-chan had a half-laughing expression, like a ghost There was not a trace of her prior elegance, as she wobbled toAs if she wanted a hug
I felt conflicted Should I lie? Could I cover this up by lying? Even if I could i-chan went, would I be able to i-chan had arrived at? No, this was not a matter of could or could not -- it was a matter of do, or do not
Do I layer more lies to her?
Even though it is not nonsense?
”Hey,my--” her voice trailed after each word as she asked ”Is my mother, --”
”Yeah For a while now, she has been killed”
The scammer did not lie
2
But the ireater the next moment
Fip -- it sounded
I heard asliced -- and then, the right wrist that was flailing to grab my chest