A Simple Survey:Volume2 Reaper05
Status: Incomplete
Reaper Game 05: Conclusion
Part 1
He swung his arms around as hard as he could.
He ripped apart the thick plastic material with his hands and ran out of the bag and into the bar.
The bunny girl was sitting on a random table.
Her legs were crossed and she was grinning as she looked down on Higashikawa who was breathing erratically on the floor.
“It was probably too dark to see, but there was a pool of powerful acid below. Once the wire was released and they fell in, there was no way to save them.”
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”
He tried to curse at her, but he could not even form such simple words.
He ignored his trembling tongue and lips, and instead simply shouted out. As the cries of beasts contained certain signals, Higashikawa’s showed less intelligence than a wild beast.
He stretched out his arms in hopes of dragging the bunny girl down from the round table and climbing on top of her.
But then something happened.
The bunny girl did not actually do anything.
“…!?”
As soon as Higashikawa gathered strength in his legs to leap at her, his feet unnaturally slipped. He collapsed clumsily and face-first to the floor as the bunny girl grinned.
“It’s no use. That attraction was quite absurd. As soon as it ended, the preparations were complete.”
“Shut up!!!!!” He finally managed to form proper words. Higashikawa followed his emotions and spat out those words from the floor. “I’ll save them… I’ll save those nine no matter what!! They took the risk of choosing black to save me after I gave up on my life! All of them did!! Every single one!! It is definitely wrong for them to be used and then killed. Why did they have to die while I survived!? That’s why-…!!”
“But what are you even going to do? The stoppers for the wires were already released. They should all be dissolved down to the bone in that pool of acid. And the bones will melt away before too long.”
“…!!!!!!”
Higashikawa bit his lip and the flavor of iron oozed out.
The hope inside him was no more than refusing to imagine what he had not directly seen. It was the same as closing a cat in a metal canister and thoroughly beating the canister from outside. Saying the cat might still be alive because you had not looked inside was much too evil to be called wishful thinking.
He knew that.
He knew the truth.
Yet Higashikawa Mamoru would not give up on those nine.
He refused to give up on them!
Higashikawa’s thoughts circled around and around and around and around in his head like they had been tossed into a maze with no exit. Sweat poured from his body. He rolled clumsily across the floor, balled up in the fetal position, and could not move a single finger.
He was distancing his mind from any information from the outside world.
Was he focusing his thoughts or was it simply escapism?
Meanwhile, the bunny girl’s expression was that of someone cleaning up the trash after having fun with some noisy fireworks.
“Hm, hm. So this is what resided within me. Well, it makes sense given the format. This is the sort of story that would lead to this absurdity being overwritten onto me.”
She was saying something.
But it did not matter.
While looking down on Higashikawa who was still breathing erratically on the floor, the bunny girl broke apart one of the laptops sitting on the same round table as her. She pulled an industrial product made of colorful cords out from within.
It used a thin panel instead of a cylinder, but it resembled the time bomb used in Higashikawa’s first attraction.
“This was prepared as a penalty in case you tried to access anything we didn’t want. But the detailed design was outsourced, so I don’t really know how it works.”
Even as she said that, the bunny girl’s slender fingers ripped out the colorful cords one by one.
Over half of the 20 or more cords were likely traps.
If she carelessly severed one of them, it would explode.
And yet…
“When it isn’t supposed to explode, nothing can make it explode. This is not just a dud or a malfunction. When I am not supposed to lose, I cannot lose. Those are the rules that surround me right now.”
“…”
She was annoying.
She was a bother.
What did it matter? What did that bomb with its cords ripped out matter?
“You can think this is some kind of trick if you like. But an answer like that is not going to be enough to defeat me,” said the bunny girl offhandedly.
She then tossed the silent bomb out the bar door with the carefreeness of someone tossing a magazine into the trash after reading through it.
A great roar and vibration came from the shopping mall, but Higashikawa still did not care.
What did it matter?
Would that help him save those nine?
If not, he just needed to remain silent.
Higashikawa Mamoru could not think about anything else. He could no longer think at all.
“This may be thanks to roleplaying using the storyline of gambles that toy with human lives. This goes well beyond luck or fortune. Just by standing here, I can call in an infinite supply of success. Perhaps this is something like being Nike, the goddess of victory in Greek mythology. Anyway, I played the dealer, so my version is for the part of the ruler. I have acquired the character of the Unbeatable Emperor from gambling stories. This is a good start, and it shows our project is progressing smoothly.”
She was no longer expecting any reply from Higashikawa. She seemed to be satisfied as long as someone was there to hear her speak.
There was no reason for it. This explanation and conversation held no meaning. The bunny girl was simply doing it on a whim for self-satisfaction.
Or…
Perhaps that irresponsibility was linked to the mysterious concept of the absurd she had mentioned.
“Killing those nine has created a great current. Now we on the organizer side just have to wait for our objective to complete itself. Do you know what is important here, Higashikawa-san?”
While still lying on the ground, Higashikawa finally moved just his eyes in response to his name.
“That’s right: how to deal with you.”
The bunny girl’s smile deepened.
It spread unnaturally far like butter melting in a frying pan.
“Now that those nine deaths have met the absurdity requirements, we have no logical reason to care about you any longer. Do you know what that means? What do you think is about to happen to you?”
Would he be saved?
Was she saying he would be let go?
After everything they did, would they not fight him or even give him any more challenges!?
“That’s right.”
The bunny girl smiled.
She smiled and smiled and smiled.
She pulled a knife from her cleavage and spun it around in her hand.
“If we used logic to decide what to do, the absurdity we went to such lengths to bring here might disperse.”
She would kill him because they had no reason to kill him.
Things were going well, so she would destroy everything.
If any logic remained, she would overturn it.
It was as if the world had been filled with a rule that made everything the opposite of what it was supposed to be.
“She will be here soon.”
The bunny girl stood up from the round table.
She approached with a smile and a glittering blade.
“She is an aggregation of the absurd that has taken the form of a pure white girl. That absurd existence is on a completely different dimension from me. Higashikawa-san? The situation you have fallen into is most definitely absurd. If the girl and the absurd can each affect each other, then that girl can be made to appear by preparing the absurd. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
At this stage, Higashikawa was still lying unmoving on the floor.
It was not that he did not know what was about to happen to him.
He did not think he could avoid the blade with miraculous physical ability. Nor did he think the bunny girl was so unskilled that she could not successfully stab him.
He remained silent.
Even his breathing stopped.
He truly did not make a single noise.
“Now, Higashikawa-san. I do not know if you are simply not listening or if you have lost the ability to understand what you are hearing as words, but…this is checkmate. Farewell.”
She did not hesitate.
No convenient hero rushed out to save him and no hidden ability exploded out of him at the last second.
The bunny girl’s right arm swung down and brought the knife with it.
Part 2
The result was simple.
Despite having his life placed on the line, Higashikawa was not interested in what happened.
As he lay on the floor, his lips moved ever so slightly.
“…Huh?” said the bunny girl. Higashikawa did not bother looking up. “The blade fell out of the handle? No, wait, wait, wait. I already proved I have the power to never lose when I am not supposed to lose. So how…how did you call in success here?”
What was she saying?
Why was she still talking about that?
Higashikawa could not understand it. And that was why he muttered something while lying with his right ear pressed against the floor.
He spoke about what truly mattered.
“…I can hear it.”
“What?”
“I can hear a creaking noise from below the floor. Isn’t that the sound of those bags hanging from the wires!?”
At the same moment, the laptops placed along the bar’s tables all grew red. Warning messages displaying errors appeared on all of them. From the diagram displayed along with the errors, this seemed to be related to the bags and the pulleys and gears that controlled them.
“Due to a malfunction in the attraction’s devices, they’re still hanging there? And this isn’t just one or two malfunctions… All nine of them malfunctioned!?”
The bunny girl snapped her fingers and all of the error messages disappeared. In their place, profiles for Higashikawa and the others appeared. The profiles included brief overviews of their qualifications and academic histories as well as records of their actions in the attractions.
It included a section titled Progress Report #201.
The material added under Initial Setup said the following:
Higashikawa Mamoru.
Viewing of and assisting in the production of snuff films.
Mutilating a corpse and instigating the same.
Hiyama Tomoko.
Viewing of and assisting in the production of snuff films.
Mutilating a corpse.
Kazakami Shinzou.
Viewing of and assisting in the production of snuff films.
Mutilating a corpse.
Matsumi Shirauo
Viewing of and assisting in the production of snuff films.
Mutilating a corpse.
Rachel Skydance
Viewing of and assisting in the production of snuff films.
Mutilating a corpse. (Unclear if she would have done so on her own.)
“I see. When we had Player 1 mutilate that corpse in the first attraction, you took that irregular action. You convinced Rachel Skydance to mutilate her corpse in order to save her. …And that created an imbalance in the criminal charges!! That’s why!!”
“…”
The technical details did not matter.
The nine of them were still alive even if just barely.
In that case, this was no time to be lying on the ground trying to escape reality.
Higashikawa Mamoru slammed his fist down on a nearby laptop and grabbed a sharp fragment of the broken screen.
At the same time, the bunny girl pulled out a new knife and rushed at Higashikawa.
They both took action.
Higashikawa shot to his feet and thrust the sharp fragment directly at the center of the bunny girl’s chest. The bunny girl swung her knife horizontally to slice through Higashikawa’s throat.
However…
“!?”
“!!”
Both attacks failed.
Cracks ran through Higashikawa’s shard and it shattered before reaching the bunny girl’s chest. Meanwhile, the blade of the bunny girl’s knife once more slipped from the handle and stabbed into the wall to the side.
The two glared at each other from close enough to grab at each other.
As the bunny girl tossed aside the knife handle, the confidence from before had vanished.
“It looks like this just isn’t going to work. At this distance, it is infinite. Even if we brought in a Gatling gun or a shoulder-fired missile, we cannot kill each other. That is simply the type of character we have been constructed as.”
“…”
“All ten of you in Player 1 and Player 2 were supposed to end this as equal characters that were nothing more than gamble participants. You would never have been able to defeat the Unbeatable Emperor who was your dealer. But your irregular actions caused an imbalance in the criminal charges meant to guide in the absurd. You could say you obtained the position of a character with the opportunity to play a special role among the participants. You could call that character the Ever-Victorious Challenger.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I like that look in your eyes. You’ve finally worked up the will to kill me. But it’s no use. The situation can never change as it is. We each have a great power that calls in success, so we will always automatically avoid death no matter how hard we try. This is a world where we could fight for 100 years and never reach a conclusion. …There is still much to research about the absurd. After all, this has even twisted time and continuity.”
“?”
“You still don’t get it? The mechanical malfunctions that saved those nine from death were most likely brought on by the character you have been given. However, when did you acquire that character? As the dealer, I gained the Unbeatable Emperor only after sacrificing those nine to guide in the absurd. Your Ever-Victorious Challenger must be the same. …And yet your power saved those nine. You saved them using the character you obtained from their deaths. What can you call that if not a contradiction? This is a power that can ignore time and continuity, so how are normal weapons like knives and bombs supposed to decide our victory?”
Higashikawa did not understand what was happening, but he began to wonder if the bunny girl did not have control of the situation.
The cat had been removed from the box and its state could not be explained.
It was truly absurd.
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“This.”
The bunny girl snapped her fingers.
Immediately afterwards, a change came over all of the laptops in the bar. White letters of the alphabet scrolled across the black screens at high speed. This was not simple English, so Higashikawa could not understand it.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the settings of the facility’s master key,” said the bunny girl offhandedly with a single card in one hand. But what she said was very important. “This single card lets you unlock all the doors, view any files, switch on and off the traps, and control any device. It can drag those nine up with the spare machines or it can drop them into the acid.”
The master key.
That would be the best item for rescuing the other nine and for escaping the facility.
“Why are you letting me see that?”
“Because it is necessary,” readily replied the bunny girl. She moved in close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. “In the end, we are both supported by the gambling absurdities that control this field. Knives and guns have no meaning anymore. Those reasonable responses would be exterminated by the absurd. And thus we must compete according to the rules of the absurd. We must disturb these powers that call in success like the goddess of victory. That is the only way to rob the other of their power. Only once we do that can we kill each other.”
“So are you suggesting betting that master key on an attraction?”
“More or less. If you win, only your red and black card will function as the master. If I have the master key, the nine of them will die. If you have the master key, I will lose my life and the organizers’ project will be destroyed. It is only once we both put everything on the line that this attraction can overturn the absurd. This level of gamble is needed.”
“What exactly is the attraction? Guessing the password?”
“That would be meaningless. You have obtained the Ever-Victorious Challenger, so you would probably get it right just by randomly hitting the keys. And so I have put together some more interesting questions.”
“…”
It was undoubtedly going to be something horrible.
Higashikawa had learned all too well how cruel the bunny girl was during that attraction with the red and black cards.
It would be something far, far above the upper limit of his imagination.
Finally, the letters stopped scrolling across the many screens.
Instead of some strange program code, it now displayed proper Japanese text.
Higashikawa focused all of his attention on grasping what it said.
And…
“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Eh?”
As soon as he understood what it was he saw there, Higashikawa Mamoru’s thoughts stopped completely.
Part 3
As Higashikawa stood motionlessly, he heard the bunny girl whispering in his ear.
She was so close he could smell the sweetness of her breath.
“This was originally set up on the facility’s exit as the final challenge we could watch you suffer through.”
The final challenge.
It was not proving some difficult problem that troubled mathematicians the world over and it was not an ancient piece of text that no linguist had been able to translate.
However…
In a way, this was a much more dreadful challenge for Higashikawa than some obviously difficult problem. It was a cliff. It was a precipice.
Higashikawa spoke aloud its name.
“The attraction monitoring we took part in…?”
“ ‘Attraction 01: Deadly Bullet Game’, ‘Attraction 02: Hide-and-Seek Gamble’, ‘Attraction 03: Bang, Bang, Bang!!’, ‘Attraction 04: Sudden Death Old Maid’, ‘Attraction 05: Loser Resurrection Game’, ‘Attraction 06: Grand Slam Homer’, ‘Attraction 07: Memory Game’, ‘Attraction 08: Washing Away Blood with Blood’, ‘Attraction 09: Killing Someone by Solving a Mystery Not Involving a Murder’, and ‘Attraction 10: Earn 200,000 Yen with 1 Millimeter’. …Well, I’m sure you recognize all the names. However…”
The bunny girl smiled.
She smiled cruelly.
Her smile did not seem to simply contain evil; it seemed to symbolize evil itself.
“This time, the rules in our archives have been updated. The deficiencies in the rules have been compensated for thanks to the monitor form you filled out.”
It was budding.
Something pitch black and filled with cruelty was blooming.
On a personal level, this was the most difficult problem in the world.
“You must now give a strategy for the attractions you have completed yourself!! If you can get through all 10 attractions, you win. If you cannot come up with anything for even one, you lose. See? It’s just a simple monitoring, right!?”
They might have answers.
There might be holes remaining.
But he had been the ones to close up the holes. This attraction used the answerer’s own thought processes to seal up the holes the answerer would think up first.
Even if the questions could be answered easily with a third party’s thought processes, the answerer himself could not use those.
In other words…
“The answerer has prepared his own personal dead end! Even as his life is on the line, he himself blocks his way as his most powerful enemy!! Really, don’t you think these are the perfect kind of absurd questions for the situation!?”
Bringing out these questions almost assured a checkmate on her part.
It was like heading back into a maze one had already sealed the exit of.
However…
“If I clear this, I get the master key?”
“What?”
“I don’t know what all this Unbeatable Emperor and Ever-Victorious Challenger nonsense is about, but those absurdities with embarrassing names will disappear and I’ll be able to punch you right in the face, right?”
“Wait, you actually intend to answer them? But this attraction was made so your own thought patterns would lead you to surrender!”
“…”
Instead of answering, Higashikawa Mamoru turned toward a nearby laptop.
(You call this hard?)
He knew of a much, much harder problem. And he knew the people who had solved it. He had seen the answers given by those nine who had risked their lives to save his life in that attraction using red and black cards. They had not simply trusted Higashikawa. The entire group of ten had trusted the entire group of ten, and so they had played black so they could all survive.
Compared to that choice…
Compared to that answer…
He was not about to let these pathetic lines of text frighten him!
“This is the final challenge,” decisively said Higashikawa Mamoru as he faced the laptop. “Prepare yourself. This will be the last attraction. I don’t give a shit about the Unbeatable Emperor or the Ever-Victorious Challenger! I will destroy all of your plans here!!”
The final challenge is about to begin. Please prepare paper, a pen, and the answer sheet you made during the monitoring.
Final Challenge 01: Deadly Bullet Game
In this attraction, items with point values are used to defend against bullets fired from head on. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 02: Hide-and-Seek Gamble
In this attraction, the participants are divided between hiders and seekers and play hide-and-seek for a set time. If a hider is photographed by one of the seekers’ digital cameras, he is considered “caught”. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction from the standpoint of a hider?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 03: Bang, Bang, Bang!!
In this attraction, five participants are handed five handguns. Each gun has only one bullet. They fight to the death and the last survivor wins. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 04: Sudden Death Old Maid
In this attraction, a shuffled deck of cards is divided between Competitor A and Competitor B. Then they are each given 26 jokers. Competitors A and B must hold out a pair of cards and play old maid with them. The competitor with fewer jokers at the end wins. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 05: Loser Resurrection Game
In this attraction, pairs are created. To win, one member of the pair must have their heart stopped and the other must breathe life back into them. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 06: Grand Slam Homer
In this attraction, at least one home run must be hit from balls pitched by a cutting edge pitching machine in a domed stadium. The batter has 10 chances. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 07: Memory Game
In this attraction, the participant is shown a video on a monitor, must answer quiz questions to pass through bars blocking their path, and must answer a memory-based question at the end. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 08: Washing Away Blood with Blood
In this attraction, the participants kill each other using various weapons drawn by lots. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 09: Killing Someone by Solving a Mystery Not Involving a Murder
In this attraction, the contestants must enter a 2 digit number and then use various question cards to hide their own number and work out the other’s number. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Final Challenge 10: Earn 200,000 Yen with 1 Millimeter
In this attraction, your own body is fixed into a guillotine. You must use buttons that drop and stop the blade to stop the blade at the very last second. What is a surefire method of clearing this attraction?
Point of Improvement 1 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 2 from Your Form: ( )
Point of Improvement 3 from Your Form: ( )
Your New Surefire Method:
( )
Part 4
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………You’re kidding.”
The bunny girl muttered those words in shock.
She showed a look of amazement that had not been seen on her face before.
“But…you shouldn’t be able to solve those. You shouldn’t be able to solve them!! Those are the worst possible questions for the answerer because they used the answerer’s own thought processes to seal up his personal loopholes!!”
“The worst possible?” Higashikawa Mamoru frowned doubtfully after he finished typing. “You think that’s the worst possible? This was nothing more than a simple monitoring.”
“Oh, I see. It was because they were absolutely impossible to answer. That’s why! That has to be it!! That brought the absurd into play, didn’t it!? The power to make the impossible possible allowed you to answer those unanswerable questions!!”
“…”
Higashikawa Mamoru slowly shook his head.
He did not need any strange powers to solve something of this level.
It was just a matter of preconceptions.
The fixed idea that he could never solve it would restrict his thoughts. By resetting everything and rethinking from square one, he could find a way through.
This was just a game of creating a question and solving it oneself.
It had nothing but himself in it.
But Higashikawa knew of something else.
He knew of his nine comrades who had taken on the burden of others’ lives and futures and shown him the way to the best answer.
When he thought of them…
When their lives hung in the balance…
He could no longer think of this as his own choice. It exceeded the boundaries of playing a game with himself and new pathways of thought opened up.
When someone falls in love, gets married, has a child, or takes on responsibility for anything important, their thought processes transform into something new. This was the same as that.
“I win.”
“…”
“I win. It doesn’t matter if you accept it or not. I won the final attraction. The master key I need to rescue those nine is mine. And more importantly, we no longer need to be bound by those ridiculous powers. Isn’t that right?”
“Ha…ha ha,” laughed the bunny girl.
It was not that she had stopped thinking out of fear or that she was laughing out of desperation.
Some decisive core remained. She had not broken yet.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”
“…What do you find so funny about this? Are you laughing at your own fate?”
“I can’t help but laugh. This is so absurd. This is truly absurd!! This is not what we organizers had hoped for, but it is actually of even higher purity! After that conclusion, there can be no doubting it. Objective Alice will be led here!! Our great desire shall be fulfilled!!”
The bunny girl snapped her fingers.
All of the laptops gave off a dazzling light. They were not simply displaying something. The devices themselves had obviously exceeded some sort of limit. The excessive amount of electricity caused them to give off light on the level of a camera flash, but the great burden then caused the laptops to burst to pieces and send sparks flying everywhere.
“!?”
Higashikawa covered his face with his hands and the bunny girl was gone by the time he could see again. One door to the bar was suspiciously sitting open, but he did not know if she had actually escaped through it.
However, he held the key to the entire facility in his hand.
And he still had that unnatural power to call in success that apparently came from the absurd. If what the bunny girl had said was accurate, this power was on the level of the goddess of victory who caused conflicts among the gods because simply having her on your side would give you victory in a war.
If he tried to find her, he could find her right away.
If he tried to kill her, he could kill her right away.
“But more importantly…”
The nine dangling in the great pit below the floor came first.
Higashikawa thought all of the laptops had been destroyed, but when he looked around the area, he found one laptop that was conveniently unscathed.
He did not know if it had simply survived or if his power had overturned continuity once more.
Part 5
Part 6
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