Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.21

021

The fourth mummy—if you included Miss Suicidemaster’s mummy in the count, that would make it the fifth mummy. But no, I think it made sense to call it the fourth mummy here.

Gaen-san was unhappy about it, but to put it coldly, there was no doubt that this was less of a development in the incident and more of a development in the investigation—because, regardless of whether she’d been found, it didn’t change the fact that she’d already been turned into a mummy.

Not to mention, if the circumstances of the discovery narrowed down the timeframe of the crime to sometime tonight, didn’t that mean that Suicidemaster had an established alibi?

If she was being sheltered in these holy shrine grounds, then that could also mean that these holy shrine grounds were keeping watch over her.

“The fourth victim, the fourth mummy, is Kanguu Misago-chan. Of course, she’s a member of Naoetsu High’s girls’ basketball team, and one of the two that had ‘gone missing’—so, Koyomin, your information gathering was not in vain, in the sense that we were able to link it to an early detection.”

In that sense, it happened just as we expected. It wasn’t exactly comforting—but we’d managed to find one whose location had been unknown, in the form of a mummy.

“Where was she found? Was she in a location even harder to find than the shack in which the third mummy and second victim, Kuchimoto-chan, was found?”

If that wasn’t the case, then it was possible to infer that the crime had taken place tonight—if she had still been alive before tonight, then it meant that she had to have been mummified during the period when Suicidemaster had an alibi.

Because a mummy was something that had failed to become a vampire, there wasn’t exactly an estimated time of death—she wasn’t alive, but she wasn’t dead, either.

However, although it was a bit strange to find it disappointing, the fourth mummy, Kanguu-chan, was in fact found in a location “harder to find than that shack”.

“It was at the bottom of a reservoir. The mummy had been weighted down and submerged at the bottom of the water. Unless you were searching on the assumption that there’s a high probability of a victim that hasn’t been found, well, it wasn’t a place that would have easily been found.”

It wasn’t a place that would have easily been found—a terrible location.

I could feel the malice.

Or, rather… Even if Suicidemaster’s alibi couldn’t be established, “attacking a high school girl and sinking her in a reservoir” did not exactly feel like the crime of a vampire.

If the criminal had broken into her room and attacked her in her sleep, or left a signature, or anything like that, then it was still possible for me to say that it very much held an oddity-like nature… But, the bottom of a reservoir?

That was like throwing a human into the Blood Pond Hell.

Not to mention—while she was alive.

It was a huge deviation from Shinobu, or Suicidemaster as had been depicted by “Princess Beauty”—it was the spiteful, narrow, and extremely ordinary way of thinking one would expect from a human.

Or perhaps they had gotten some inspiration?

Influenced by Princess Acerola, who invited even a treasonous person like me to heaven in order to revive Suicidemaster, perhaps the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire was trying to provoke the theory that she wasn’t the culprit?

“Of course, even though she’d been submerged in water, she didn’t ‘revert’ or anything.”

Gaen-san glanced in the direction of Suicidemaster’s sleeping form—what had been placed upon her revived naked body was no longer my jacket, but instead the white clothing taken from Hachikuji’s wardrobe. And that, somehow, increased her aura of death.

Well, it could be a simple seal by Gaen-san to keep her from suddenly going on a rampage when she woke up… Although, if that was the case, it would be strange that Shinobu didn’t say anything in particular about her “old pal” having been sealed, simple as it was.

“…At this rate, should we assume that the last club member has also been mummified in secret somewhere?”

“It doesn’t seem like there’s room for optimism. It’s not like it will end with the fifth victim, either.”

The fifth victim—Kiseki Souwa-chan.

Right now, they were probably out using all their strength to search for her…

“If it were me, I’d bury her in the ground. To make it even harder to find her.”

Hachikuji suddenly and nonchalantly unveiled her gruesome deduction—though, no matter how gruesome it was, it was a possibility that had to be considered.

“Yes. I believe that it’s highly possible. Or rather, when I took Suicidemaster into my care, her situation was more or less something like that.”

“…Was she buried in the ground?” Shinobu asked doubtfully.

“In the ground, or rather, in the mountain,” responded Hachikuji. “In this mountain, that is. Rather than having been buried, it’s possible that she’d dug herself in on her own. Mummies can be like that, after all.”

Hmm… Well, rituals such as burying oneself in the ground and becoming a mummy have been seen in many places since ancient times.

“I can’t agree with that reasoning. In the first place, if a vampire wanted to hide a corpse to destroy evidence, there would be no better place to hide it than in their own belly.”

It was a rather composed opinion coming from Shinobu.

Really, coming from Shinobu.

No, she seemed a little unhappy, but that may be because she was offended at having been left out of the loop so far. She didn’t seem like she was particularly trying to protect Suicidemaster in any way.

The worst-case scenario—that she would take Suicidemaster’s side and end up in another heated confrontation against Gaen-san and the other experts… But right now, any signs that she would do such a thing seemed virtually nonexistent. …Why?

Is it because she knew?

Knew that there was no need to cover for her—was she as convinced of Suicidemaster’s innocence as her predecessor, Princess Acerola, was?

“Well, I’d like to come back and hear about the relationship between Hachikuji-chan and Suicidemaster later, but for now, I have something I want to tell Koyomin.”

Gaen-san smoothly returned to the main topic—she made a great MC for someone like me who got easily distracted.

Well, I wanted to hear not just Hachikuji’s opinion but also Shinobu’s opinion later, but of course, those would not prove Suicidemaster’s innocence by themselves.

In the first place, once we put aside the premise that bloodsucking is not a sin for vampires, there’s no guarantee that the missing high school girl won’t be swallowed whole when her blood is sucked.

As I thought about that…

“Something you want to tell me?” I asked, repeating her words. I didn’t have any idea what she could be talking about, it seemed to have been a perfectly natural continuation for Gaen-san.

“A code,”

she said.

“Where the fourth mummy, Kanguu Misago-chan, was discovered, just like when the third mummy, Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan, was discovered, a code had been left behind—and it’s not clear if it’s what you called a living message, or if it’s the signature of the vampire.”