Monogatari Series - Volume 23 - Chapter 1.22

022

Aha, so that was why I hadn’t been fired. That emotional-sounding reason of “faith” hadn’t necessarily been a lie, but more realistically speaking, I’d been given the okay to stay in the investigation squad to handle the cryptanalysis.

Thank you, Meniko! Hooray for friends!

My strength as a human did go up from making friends!

…I wasn’t sure if such a flippant change in policy was okay, but regardless, the message (or signature) that had been left behind by Kanguu-chan (or the vampire) was as follows.

“820/280/610/160”

Perfect for a mathematics major.

Well, not for me, but for Meniko, was what I meant. But it was a code made up of purely numbers, without any letters mixed in like last time.

Four numbers.

Could the fact that exactly four mummies had been discovered be some sort of key?

Did it have to do with prime numbers again? No, with all of them being even numbers, and all of them ending in zero, they definitely weren’t prime numbers…

“That reminds me, if you’re considering this a signature, then I believe Suicidemaster doesn’t even know what prime numbers are.”

And neither do I, said Shinobu brusquely from beside me—I wasn’t exactly thrilled by her cavalier attitude, but it was certainly a far cry from the time with Shishirui Seishirou, when she had refused to even join the discussion.

Could this also be considered a change in policy?

Thinking about it, since Shinobu was no longer a pure oddity, change was now something that was allowed for her—it was no longer something that would cause her to be extinguished.

It wasn’t so strange to think that the little girl had experienced some growth after the battle over the Demon Blade “Kokorowatari” against Shishirui Seishirou, with whom she shared a history—and though I didn’t know what she thought about what I’d just thought, but Gaen-san spoke up.

“Yep. The truth is, I didn’t suspect Suicidemaster as much as I might have implied. It was just that, with a code like that being found, we certainly couldn’t ignore her as the prime suspect,” she said, agreeing to what Shinobu said.

It was a retraction of her previous statement that I’d thought was unthinkable for Gaen-san—or no, I guess it wasn’t. In the first place, Gaen-san had never actually told me that Suicidemaster was a suspect.

It was most likely that she didn’t have the conviction.

“Then, what sort of vampires are the other suspects assumed to be like?”

The culprit was undoubtedly a vampire, at least.

And even though she was more like the dregs of a vampire, Shinobu was still technically a potential suspect.

“I won’t name anybody specific, but I can think of a few beings that might want to pin the crime on Suicidemaster.”

“Pin—the crime?”

No.

Whether or not it’s a crime for vampires to suck blood was a different matter entirely—was it wrong for lions to eat people?

It was a theme I’d touched upon in my conversation with Princess Acerola.

“If they could set up the renowned Suicidemaster as the imaginary culprit, then they’ll be able to safely go around sucking blood—there could be a vampire that thinks that way.”

For that purpose, they went and turned Suicidemaster herself into a mummy?

Then, assuming “B777Q” was indeed a signature, then that signature was a fake signature? Then Suicidemaster wouldn’t have to know what prime numbers were for things to make sense.

Because it was a fake signature left by someone else.

“That goes for if it was a living message, too. Let’s say the vampire had went up to the high school girls and claimed, ‘I am the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster’—then the probability that the victims would want to leave that name behind is pretty high, wouldn’t you say?”

“Mm…”

She was right. I should’ve put more thought into it than just being satisfied at cracking the code… Not that I had cracked the code with my own power to begin with.

However, when she put it that way, I couldn’t deny that it felt like a bit of a letdown. Because then, for what reason had I been keeping watch over Shinobu?

“Well, in the end, I got to descend to hell again, so it’s fine.”

“As if that could be fine!” retorted Shinobu.

Well, to be precise, I’d actually ascended to heaven, but things would get more convoluted if I brought that up now—it was hard to figure out how exactly I would tell Shinobu about “Princess Beauty”.

So at present, the story was that I had taken some of the soup from the Blood Pond Hell into my mouth, and somehow managed to revive a second time—not the princess’s saliva.

Well, whether it was heaven or hell, with the way I made Shinobu and Hachikuji cry, it really wasn’t acceptable to die in such a casual, easygoing way.

It was something that Ougi-chan had harshly pointed out—continuing to die and revive was certainly risky. Above risk, and beyond risk.

I could stray off the path again.

As a punishment to myself, let’s swear to go and visit Oikura at her new lodgings.

“However, unlike Shinobu-chan, Suicidemaster is not a vampire that has been certified as harmless, so even if she turns out to be innocent in this case, she will still be targeted by specialists for extermination. Well, I’m a part of the moderate faction, so I won’t do something like that—but it was fortunate that I didn’t call Episode over for this case.”

Episode, huh.

It was true that, if Episode had been called to this town like with the case of Shishirui Seishirou, then it could have turned into a reproduction of last spring break—in that sense, it was Gaen-san’s usual foresight, but there was one thing we shouldn’t forget.

With that foresight of hers, Gaen-san had called for Kagenui-san.

For that violent onmyouji, the term “moderate” was even less appropriate than the term “gothic lolita”—the only human weapon in the industry, capable of beating even immortal oddities to death.

“That isn’t really something I want to think about.”

Gaen-san crossed her arms behind her head, speaking as if escaping from reality.

“However, when push comes to shove, I’m sure her power—her violence—will be necessary in the end. If I could go and call Tadatsuru now, then maybe he could cancel her out, but unfortunately he’s always off on his own.”

In any case, it seemed there was no change in the fact that the safest course of action was to resolve the matter before Kagenui-san arrived.

But anyway… The code.

If it was the victim that had left it, then was Kanguu-chan also a fan of Ellery Queen? Well, with two people belonging to the same club, it wasn’t impossible for them to have a sense of solidarity in reading the same mystery author…

Though it was hard to believe they would leave such an elaborate dying message (living message) unless they were huge fans—if this code were to be solved, would it also end up being “D/V/S”, or something pointing to “Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster”?

Or did it lead to a completely different answer… I couldn’t say anything yet. But if possible, I wanted to get as much data as I could for decoding before relying on Meniko again.

“Under what circumstances was this code discovered? You said that Kanguu-chan’s mummy was found submerged in a reservoir… How exactly had the code been left in the water?”

Had she written it with her finger at the bottom? Something like that would probably have gotten messed up while pulling the mummy out of the water…

There do exist writing implements that can be used in water, but I didn’t think a high school girl would use those normally like they would with flashcards.

“As expected, Koyomin, you sure are discerning. As expected of a pro of high school girls.”

“I’m not a pro of high school girls. Huh, what exactly did I discern?”

“The message was indeed left with a tool that a high school girl would normally use… Her cell phone.”

“Her cell phone? No, but in the water—”

Wait.

My cell phone wasn’t like that, but there did exist some tough models of cell phones that were completely waterproof—they were fine even when submerged in water, and as long as there was no problem with water pressure, they would be just as functional underwater as they were on land.

“The code was displayed on the screen. At first, I thought she was trying to make a call for help at the bottom of the water, and ran out of power before she could dial, but it didn’t make sense as a telephone number, and they weren’t area codes—so, I wondered if it was a message. A code.”

“820/280/610/160”

Well, it definitely seemed more like a code than a telephone number.

Hachikuji must have been reminded of it from the cell phone, because she spoke up.

“In Gaen-san’s time, didn’t you and your friends use pagers to send each other these kinds of codes?” she said.

It was a bit uncalled-for.

Even though I’d thought the same, I’d kept my mouth shut considering Gaen-san’s age was unknown.

“Ha ha ha. Even in my time, pagers were no longer being used. Hachikuji-chan, please do not forget that whether or not you can continue to be a god depends on how far I am willing to go.”

“Eep!”

Hachikuji went pale at the influential person exerting her influence. She was weak to adversity.

This part of Hachikuji meant she could never become like Chinou-chan.

“W-wait a minute, Araragi-san. If you put it like that, it makes it sound like I started out after that loser…”

“If you really want to act like a senpai, you should make way for the next generation. Isn’t it about time for the elderly to step aside?”

“Elderly? Out of everyone in the world, you’re the last person I’d like to hear that from, Araragi-san. You could stand to learn a bit from the gallant natures of the Nonsense User or Risuka-chan.”

“Risuka-chan hasn’t even been completed yet!”

“Rumor has it that the final volume will be published in seventeen years.”

Wasn’t that still a ways off, then?

Anyway, putting aside the judging of people based on whether they came first or not… It was true that it was a pager-like code—but in that case, it meant it wasn’t mathematics’ time to shine. It could be a play on words.

Meniko was pretty good with puns, too, so she surely wouldn’t have a tough time with this, but if there was a problem, it would be that Meniko was not in possession of any communication tools like cell phones or smartphones, despite coming from my time.

If I wanted to ask for her help, I’d have to wait until first period tomorrow—even if I wanted to meet her in person, I couldn’t just go and barge in on her in the middle of the night, unlike with Oikura.

I wanted to remain a good friend, and in order to preserve that friendship, I had to draw the line.

“Understood, Gaen-san. I’ll try what I can on my own, but I believe something like this should be decoded by the same person in order to provide uniform results, so would it be possible for you to wait until tomorrow morning for the solution?”

Manase University’s first period started at 8 am, and Meniko was going to be there 15 minutes early. Assuming that I skip the lecture itself, we could expect to make progress by 9 in the morning.

“Is your new friend a clock or what? But, well, I’ll be counting on you. I may know everything, but codes are a weakness of mine. Stuff like that did appear fairly often in oddity stories, but it was really Oshino-kun that was good at those—but the fact that she left the code on her cell phone is much stronger data than the fact that she left a code behind.”

Because, unlike those of the previous victims, we were able to get past the lock—said Gaen-san with a smile. It was a smile that showed the true potential of the authority of cell phones (and not pagers).

“With this, I’ve been able to get my hands on the victim’s personal information—since I had to come rushing all the way over here to help you, Koyomin, I haven’t had the chance to analyze it yet, but I’m expecting lots of information.”

She was putting pressure on me every time.

But still, while I knew it was necessary, it didn’t really feel right or ethical to search through someone’s cell phone. And I couldn’t honestly say I was looking forward to having to peek further into the darkness of the girls’ basketball team.

“Anyway, my detailed disclosure of information ends here. Next, shall we hear the long-awaited details from Hachikuji-chan?”

I doubted that the information that Gaen-san held had truly been fully disclosed, but I decided to let it go and turned to face Hachikuji.

I was interested in the code, but there was something I was even more interested in—how exactly had the mummified little girl ended up under the custody of the god of this town?

What did she mean when she said that Suicidemaster’s mummy had been buried in the mountain?—emergency lifesaving had been the utmost priority when we first arrived here, so there were still tons of things I didn’t get.

If she didn’t explain this now, I would have gone to heaven in vain.

“It was partly because it was an emergency, but also because I’d been told not to talk about it, so I’d put off explaining it to Araragi-san… But I guess I can’t keep quiet when you’re all looking at me like this.”

I shall renounce my right to remain silent and exercise my right to speak out.

That was what the new god said, with a bit of a sigh—as if such a right exists.