Chapter 23
“WOW! What an incredible deduction!” Woofson instantly recovered from wallowing in a sea of regret, declaring that Mira had to be right.
First Pupil cocked his head in slight confusion for a moment, but eventually caught up with the others. “That’s paw-esome, Ringmeowstress!”
“I say we look at that lending list from before,” Woofson suggested. “The book came from this library, so if someone borrowed it after Mariko, there must be a paper trail.”
Mariko had kept the book so long after its due date, it was confiscated and presumably loaned out again. If it had been, Woofson believed the person who next borrowed it must’ve obtained the envelope holding the key card.
“Mm-hmm. You must be right,” Mira agreed and immediately gazed at the list.
First, she found Mariko among the many past borrowers. She found the next person to borrow the volume about a month after Mariko; they were named Shidou.
Shidou seemed to have been a more varied reader; instead of reading Hanesaka Iori single-mindedly, like Mariko, they borrowed books from various genres. In fact, Shidou occupied one-third of the loan list.
“First things first—we should search this Shidou person’s room.” Certain they’d find something there, Mira and her companions picked up the scattered books and left the library.
***
At the elevator bay on the floor full of researchers’ quarters, she looked for the name “Shidou” and found one name that matched: Shidou Toshiomi. They headed straight for that room, unlocked the door without issue using Mira’s authentication key, and entered.
“Goodness, this is…a room…”
The floor plan was no surprise, since it was similar to the others, but the rooms’ furniture apparently depended on the resident. In Shidou’s case, bookshelves covered every square inch of the walls. Their powerful love of books was more than obvious. Shidou must’ve taken all the books with them; the shelves were empty.
“If we find nothing in this room, we’re back where we started. Let’s search it top to bottom!”
“Okay, Ringmeowstress!”
“Woof! Yes, ma’am!”
This room was the likeliest yet to contain the key card, but that also meant they’d need to give up if their search came up short.
Thus, the trio eagerly and thoroughly scoured every inch of the room—every tier of every bookshelf; in and under every drawer; even up above, in spots where the envelope couldn’t possibly be.
In the process, First Pupil reported, “Meow meow! There’re tons of things stuffed in here!”
What was stuffed where? “Hm? What’s the matter?” Mira ran over to check.
In front of First Pupil was a desk that looked like a typical work area. He was gazing at the drawer. “This.” First Pupil pulled out the top drawer. Inside were piles and piles of bundled papers. “There’s a whole lot in here!”
“Ooh! This might just be the jackpot!”
The papers were neatly collected notes. It seemed this Shidou person was methodical. They’d taken notes they received, bound them together, and stored the papers in their desk. Those notes included not just minor work communications and directions but casual conversations as well. Shidou either couldn’t be bothered to weed those out or liked them enough to keep them. The researcher’s methodical nature was evident; at the bottom of the drawer was a bundle of brightly colored papers.
“It might just be among these…” Mira quickly put the bundles on the desk and picked up the colorful one. As she expected, it was a bunch of cute envelopes.
The one Mariko had used as a bookmark might be mixed in; in fact, that was absolutely possible.
“I’m going to check them one by one now.” Mira picked up an envelope and looked inside as if checking a lottery card.
Her companions watched with bated breath.
“My little heart’s beatin’ out of my chest…”
“It has to be in there. It has to be!”
There were still notes in the envelopes. Upon inspecting them, it became clear that Shidou was a trusted figure among the researchers.
The notes included work handoff requests, people asking for advice, and even requests like Tomorrow is May 22, the director’s birthday. Keep her in one place for us! Many asked Shidou for help with love. There were other notes about birthdays, implying that everyone celebrated those together.
“Hrmm… Shidou was more sociable than I expected.”
Based on the state of their room and their apparently serious personality, Mira had expected them to be less appealing. It seemed they’d been a central pillar of this community.
Shidou had seemingly been generous too. One note from Mariko read Thanks for helping me search. I still couldn’t find it, though! Based on that message, the note was surely about the key card.
A few envelopes later, Mira found one still sealed.
“Ooh… There it is! It’s there!”
Mira had finally found it: the key card she’d been searching for. The card in the envelope was about half the size of her palm—smaller than she’d expected. With it was a memo: This is the security-blanking key card. Don’t you lose it! — Isurugi Touko. The note also included instructions on using the card.
They now at least had the key card. Setting aside the question of whether it still worked, First Pupil and Woofson piped up with glee. Despite their rivalry, the pair always rejoiced together in the end.
“We did iiit!”
“Spectacularly done!”
While the other two celebrated, Mira gazed at the envelope containing the key card. “Still, what an uncanny chain of coincidences led to this,” she murmured.
Neither Mariko nor Shidou would’ve imagined that the card was in here. Still, that was why Mira was able to find it. Part of her had to feel grateful that they’d delivered it to her through time.
After mulling that over for a while, Mira dismissed First Pupil and Woofson and left Shidou’s room to meet up with Soul Howl.
***
When Mira proudly told Soul Howl the story of how she discovered the key card, his first reaction was surprise. “I can’t believe you actually found it…”
It seemed he hadn’t had much faith that they’d locate such an ancient relic and had focused on investigating a way to issue a new key card. He’d found that issuing a new one wasn’t especially difficult, although the process had several steps. It would take about a week to do so; the method was time-consuming, but certain.
“If this key card has an expiration date, we’ll want to look into your method next. Of course, mine comes first.” Mira chuckled, then pointed out the next problem: having obtained the necessary key card, they needed to figure out how to use it. Their work would affect the entire facility’s security. Surely they couldn’t just go and use it anywhere.
While Mira began to think about that, Soul Howl found an opportunity to be smug. “Oh, no problem there. While I was looking into how to issue a new card, I read a few things about how to use them. Just leave that to me.” Soul Howl claimed he’d found a room that security personnel had used. The materials remaining there, though fragmented, had been enough for him to work out the method from. According to him, they could use a terminal hidden at the facility’s entrance. “Ready to go?”
“Very well. Let’s get this done quickly.”
Once they knew how to do something, they wanted to do it right away. Mira and Soul Howl followed their usual policy and headed straight to the elevator. They took it back to the airtight door at the entrance of the hidden facility.
***
The wall initially seemed to consist of featureless metal, but the documents Soul Howl had found claimed there was a security panel there.
Gazing at the wall, Soul Howl took a step sideways, and then another. “According to the text, it should be around here…” he mumbled. Mira simply watched him. He’d said to leave this to him, and he hadn’t offered any details. Apparently, explaining the process was too big a hassle. “Oh, there it is. Nice! Now, we just do this, and…”
Soul Howl pressed a few points on the wall. They began to glow red; after that, points of blue light appeared on the opposite wall.
“All right. Elder, I need you to touch the top-right light and the light third from the left, second from the bottom.”
“Mm. Very well.” Mira followed Soul Howl’s orders and touched those points on the wall. They glowed white and faded. With a mechanical whirring, part of the wall changed, and a touch panel and monitor-like screen appeared. This seemed to have been a success.
“Ooh, this must be it!”
Words appeared on-screen.
Security Control System
Loading…
This was the security terminal, if nothing else.
“Now we just need to operate it,” Soul Howl said. “The details were on that memo you found, so good luck.”
“All right. I’ll do it.”
The key card envelope had included a memo with instructions on resetting the security system. Mira took the memo out and stood in front of the terminal. Using the instructions, she brought up the Menu screen and finally reached a screen that directed her to insert the key card.
“Well…I’m counting on you…” Please work now. Don’t have a time limit, Mira prayed as she fed the terminal the key card.
Loading…
She and Soul Howl watched with bated breath, hoping the card would work without a hitch. Immediately, the screen changed and revealed their fate.
Resetting time specs.
Scanning facility.
Repairing corrupted sectors.
ERROR.
Initializing settings.
Restoring default values.
The terminal displayed one message after another. There were sounds all around, as if things were beginning to move. The key card evidently worked, even now.
The screen changed at a dizzying pace until it finally stopped and displayed the words Preparing security settings.
Then a problem came up. Under that line, the screen read Enter security code: XXXX. Judging from that, they needed to input four digits, but Soul Howl’s investigation had yielded no such code.
“A password, huh…? Is that in the memo?” he asked Mira.
“No. It only says to input things based on the instructions.” Rather than providing such a code, all Mira’s memo included was the post-input process, which was an unexpected hurdle.
“Well, this sucks…”
The fact that neither of them had come upon the four numbers thus far was proof that secret codes were safeguarded at this facility. However, there was still one ray of hope: the facility’s security situation back when it was active. The location might be locked tight now, but the notes left behind gave the impression that security back then had been lax at best.
It was probably lax because, on top of the fact that the research team was made up of trusted members, they ran no risk of someone intruding upon this location. In light of that, it was very possible that the secret code was simple.
Soul Howl tried putting in sequences like “0000” and “AAAA” at random, but they all returned authentication errors. “Hmm…nope. Not that one either.” His actions led another problem to pop up. “Oh. This has limited retries…”
On closer inspection, there were dots on the top-right of the screen. Each mistake decreased the number of dots; now, only three were left. Seeing this, Soul Howl hurriedly backed away from the touch panel.
“Look at you, wasting our retries. Good grief…” Thoughtlessly trying things out right away is one of his bad habits. Mira sighed, absolving herself of any wrongdoing as she thought over what the code could possibly be. Well, I suppose the only option is just to try something.
They didn’t have hacking technology on hand, so if they had no hints regarding the code, all they could do was guess. If that didn’t work, they’d have to think harder. Mira steeled herself and entered the first number that came to mind. Upon doing so…
Authentication complete.
Incredibly, the terminal indicated the entry was successful and moved to the next step of the process.
“Huh?!” Mira was the first to be shocked by this. At the same time, she chuckled to herself; truly, the researchers’ security was bad.
“Oh, you got it? Good guess,” Soul Howl said, impressed. “What’d you put in?”
“‘0522.’ I just gave it a try, and would you look at that?! It worked,” Mira answered proudly. When Soul Howl asked what that number meant, she smirked and said, “It was the director’s birthday.”
“Birthday, huh? How’d you know that?”
“Ha, please. But a small feat for me.”
Since that birth date was the code, a casual note in Shidou’s room had helped them in an unexpected way. Grateful toward the lax researchers, Mira and Soul Howl continued the security process.
When they reached the final step listed on the memo, they’d already succeeded in shutting down the research building’s security system.
All room locks disengaged.
Please reestablish settings.
So the screen said, but that had been the last of their work. Now that they’d nullified the building’s security, they could finally explore the places that had been locked before.
“Shall we go uncover some secrets now?” Mira pressed the Cancel button onscreen to finish the operation, then made her way straight to the elevator bay.
“They guarded their research info a lot better than the rest of the place,” Soul Howl mused. “I’m getting a little excited.”
By now, they’d gotten an idea of the researchers’ lives and attitudes from multiple angles, but the research itself was still opaque. What had the researchers protected so cautiously? Fenrir was an important part of that question, but pure curiosity drove Mira and Soul Howl onward as well.
They took the elevator down to the bottommost floor.
Security had been disabled, and no alarms or strobe lights went off on the hundredth floor, but that was more or less the same as when Mira first went down there. If there was one difference, it would be the laboratory doors.
“Ooh! They’re really unlocked!”
The doors that had refused to budge so far now opened with ease. Their strategy was a great success; it had given them exactly the results they wanted.
Although the doors had opened, the lab lights were still broken. Soul Howl used illumination magic to create a ball of light that lit his surroundings. After looking around a bit, he turned to Mira and asked, “We’re free to investigate all we want now. Want to start with this room?”
She shook her head and pointed down the hallway with a smug grin. “No, I’d like to start down there. The director’s office is that way. Don’t you think it would have the most information?”
If they wanted to know what research had been done here, surely rummaging in the director’s room would be the most efficient way to find out.
When Mira noted that she already knew where that room was, Soul Howl replied, “Sure, sounds good to me. Let’s go there first, then.” He extinguished his light and backed out of the lab. After closing the door to the eerily dark laboratory again, he looked down the hallway and asked, “How far is it from here?”
The instant she was confronted with the dim room again, though, Mira realized something odd.
“Oh, right. I forgot to mention, but…” When she’d investigated this floor a few hours ago, she and the spirits observing through her had found something unusual in a locked room. A scene right out of a horror movie flashed through her mind again. She shuddered and told Soul Howl about what had happened.
***
“Basically, that unidentified thing may have left the laboratory. We should probably be careful.” After explaining as much, Mira summoned a holy knight just in case.
“Man, tell me that before we come down…”
The mysterious being in the laboratory hadn’t seemed to be a monster, but it didn’t seem to be a living thing either, since it didn’t produce a signal on Biometric Scan.
What was it, then? Some sort of abomination the researchers here had made? Imagining that, Soul Howl rolled his eyes in exasperation before summoning his own golem to protect himself.
“Don’t blame me,” Mira complained. “I only just remembered.” To brush off the subject, she headed away at a brisk walk.
As Soul Howl followed her, curiosity crept into his eyes. In his mind, if the thing in the laboratory was neither monstrous nor living, then surely it must be robotic—or really undead.
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