Hyouka:Volume 2 Chapter 4

Status: Incomplete

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4 - "Bloody Beast"

The next day.

It was another fine day, with fine weather covering the entire country. A good day for leisurely activity. Watching a bit of TV for once in the morning, it showed people heading off to the sea and mountains. Ahh, tanned skin, smiling faces, that's what I call a vacation!

And here we were, huddling our desks in the corner of the classroom having a meeting.

Then again, I had no preference either way. In fact, having a meeting might even suit me better. If I had to be free, then I would prefer killing time in an air-conditioned cafe sipping away at a hot cup of coffee. On such an occasion, only black coffee with its bitter taste would suffice.

"Oreki, stop daydreaming! We're supposed to be thinking of a solution here!"

My consciousness returned to the meeting. Even without being told, we all knew the agenda today was the solution to the movie "Mystery (working title)". Since we were only discussing it, we weren't exactly going beyond our responsibilities as "observers". But then, I was merely listening silently, as it was just Satoshi summarizing the situation,

"...In other words, what Haba-sempai said was correct — the sealed room was rather rigid, as it's not easy breaking into a double sealed room. Especially the outer sealed room, which was practically shouting 'as though you can break in',"

The outer sealed room Satoshi was referring to was the second sealed room which Haba was mentioning yesterday. As the entrance to the right corridor was being watched by Sugimura, no one would be able to sneak inside perfectly without being seen.

Chitanda tilted her head and said timidly, "So it can't be broken into? But, how could you be so certain?"

"Well, you see, Chi-chan,"

Ibara took over the explanation.

"It's under the pretext that Haba-sempai's second sealed room exists. If that is to be broken into, then they must have filmed something about when and how it was broken into. If that's the case, then the cast could have treated this 30 seconds as a blind spot where they would show how the killer breaks in. But we've not seen anything of that sort in the movie. As the movie was very simple, there's just not enough room to insert anything extra."

"Oh, I see. So it was never mentioned whether the killer sneaked through during the brief moment Sugimura-san wasn't watching the hall, right?"

Ibara nodded and continued, "Besides, it's the same thing if it was Sugimura-sempai trying to escape from Senouchi-sempai and the others' lines of vision. That's why I hadn't thought Hongou-sempai would consider the possibility of a second sealed room. That was just Haba-sempai thinking too much. Instead, thinking from the premise of who had entered the right side corridor would have been better."

Give it up already, Ibara. Where's the fun if you have to do all the thinking? Though Ibara quickly gave a self-deprecating smile and waved her hand to dismiss what she just said.

"Nah, that probably won't work as well. Since they've already shot the part with Sugimura-sempai shown standing above the hall, which means he was watching the whole time."

Silence. The meeting had come to a deadlock.

Recognizing the stalemate, Chitanda suddenly spoke.

"By the way, I nearly forgot,"

She took something out of the bag she was carrying on her shoulder.

"Here, have some."

It was some sweets wrapped in small elegant boxes with English words written on them. It seemed they were whiskey bonbons.

"What's with these?"

Faced with the sudden appearance of such luxury, Ibara said that looking half-amazed. Chitanda smiled gently.

"These are samples for a new recipe. It was sent to us as a gift by the candy makers for the Bon Festival. Though we hardly eat many sweets, so..."

Upon opening the lids, each small box contained around 20 rather large whiskey bonbons.

"Since I got it as a gift, feel free to have them."

She handed one over to me. I removed the paper wrapping and put the chocolate in my mouth. I could smell a strong flavour of almond and whiskey as I bit it.

Chitanda asked, "How is it?"

"...It tastes strong."

To the point of getting drunk. I was thinking of having another one, seeing as she went out of her way to give them to us, but decided otherwise.

As each one of us got their share of candy, I began to do some thinking.

The biggest challenge this mystery posed was its limitation of information. As Ibara had put it, as it wasn't really filmed meticulously, there was hardly room to insert anything extra. To begin with, was it even possible to solve the mystery just by watching the movie? I really don't want to watch it again just to confirm. Besides, the movie never even showed the fact that the entrance to the hall and the north-facing windows were boarded up. Was it possible to film the rest of the scenes in time for the day after tomorrow (Yes! The day after tomorrow!) just by our own observations...

I thought from the perspective of the retired screenwriter Hongou Mayu. Writing a mystery script despite having no prior knowledge of detective fiction, and working so hard on it that she got gastritis from being too stressed out. Eba was right in describing her as a sincere and attentive person. She has my sympathies though, as the people from the filming division were unable to get the script she worked so hard on. I wonder how she would feel if she were to hear people tell her "Can you really solve this just by watching the film on?"

Well, I'll leave that aside for now.

"...... Whoo."

A strange sigh was heard.

An amazing sight appeared before my eyes. I had two pieces of bonbons unwrapped before me. Satoshi also had two, while Ibara had one. But was that six pieces of wrapping that Chitanda had unwrapped? And she was on the process of unwrapping a seventh was as we were watching. I frantically stopped her,

"I think that's enough for you. Since it's alcoholic, after all."

Upon being told, Chitanda stared at the seventh piece of bonbon on her palm, she then looked at the wrapping beside it. Just when I thought what she would do next, she promptly put the bonbon into her mouth.

As she was quite indulging herself, she said,

"Oh, I've eaten this much already. It's got some strange taste, so I felt curious and had more."

Eating more just because she was curious......

"Chi-chan! Are you alright?"

Noticing how serious the situation was, Ibara called out to Chitanda, who merely responded with a smile,

"I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"But, you look strange."

"I'm fine, I'm fine...... Fufufu......"

Umm, your laughing is way different from how you normally laugh.