Memory 24

[itsalluseless]

Memory: First Twilight and Detective's Authority [ep5] (Trivial Negative)
Game: Nimue and Odile's argument game
Day: 228
Form: A miniature goblet, with a slightly less miniature glass vial. Fill the goblet and drink to receive your memory. 2/3 uses left.

It's the morning after Battler and Erika discovered the gold. Battler has been getting far too little sleep in the guesthouse and is woken up by an alarm clock. Strangely, no one else seems to hear it. When he gets up and turns on the lights, he makes a gruesome discovery. The three other cousins and Rosa have been murdered, their throats slit open. There is a magic circle painted on the bedroom wall. As the relatives are mourning and covering the corpses with blankets, there is a knock on the door.

ERIKA: .........Good morning, everyone. .........Oh, ......what a wonderful magic circle.

The girl who bragged that she drew more pleasure from the process of exposing the truth rather than the truth itself......and who went so far as to call herself an intellectual rapist, .......appeared in the hall.

When she saw the extraordinarily creepy magic circle in this gruesome room, I heard what was unmistakably a sigh of admiration escape her lips...

BATTLER: You...............don't come in here......

ERIKA: .........I just heard about it in the corridor. It's four people who've passed away, correct? ......Allow me to express my sincere regrets.

On Erika's face......no, that's not it. It was in her eyes.

......In Erika's eyes, I could see......an indiscreet smile, ......that was hard to describe. She...found this interesting. ......She found the outbreak of a crime... ...interesting...

It was like the smile of a kid off to the side of the stage just before her turn to appear in a school play...

RUDOLF: ......Sorry, Erika-chan. We're busy at the moment. ......Could you wait in your room?

ERIKA: .........Well, we can't have that. It's the detective's right to investigate the scene.

BATTLER: We're saying that we have no business with you...! Now's the time for outsiders like you to stand back!!

ERIKA: .........'Mysteries in which a suspect who tries to interfere with the investigation turns out to be the culprit are third rate', ......is how I see things.

BATTLER: Who gives a damn about what you want?!! Get out!! No one needs you here!!

HIDEYOSHI: Erika-chan...! I'm truly sorry, but could you return to your room?! We're busy at the moment!

EVA: Geooooooooooorge, Geooooooooooooorge, waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!

ERIKA: ......Stand back. I can't investigate the scene like this.

BATTLER: If anyone needs to do something like that, we'll do it! The police will do it! Like hell you have the right to shame everyone's remains more than they already have been!!

ERIKA: Detective's authority. ......The detective has the right to inspect all crime scenes. Stand back, Ushiromiya Battler. This is an official right of this game, which the human side has acknowledged.

Those words, which seemed to be utterly ridiculous at first, ......were words of a power which had come from a world on a much higher plane than the one they were in.

Battler was thrown back by an unseen power and landed on his butt. Struck silent by this quiet intensity, ......nobody was able to prevent Erika from entering the room, suffocated by this bizarre atmosphere...

ERIKA: .........Don't worry. My goal is not to profane the dignity of the deceased. It's not like I want to peek into something as disgusting as a slit through someone's neck. ......I want to know something completely different. In other words, who committed these murders. .........Doctor Nanjo. And everyone else. ......Particularly the first one to discover them, Battler-san. .........There are many things I want to question you about, so I ask for your cooperation.

BATTLER: L, ......like I said, by what authority are you doing this...?!

[switch to meta]

BERNKASTEL: Because I am the detective.

Battler couldn't argue against this incomprehensible nonsense. ......No, ...he wasn't permitted to argue. It was a restriction...placed on pieces.

Erika summoned Doctor Nanjo and heard the details of his preliminary examination of the corpses. ......Normally, he wouldn't have spoken of that to an outsider so casually. ...However, for some reason, the atmosphere about the place had begun to make it feel as though nothing should be hidden from Erika...

Everyone gathers at the mansion. It's revealed that Genji has been killed as well. Erika and Kyrie make the connection to the epitaph, suspecting that there is a sixth victim, probably Krauss, who is missing. Natsuhi rushes off to the guesthouse, demanding to see Jessica.

ERIKA: So, everyone. For Natsuhi-san's sake, let's return to the guesthouse for the time being. ......Though it's not as though seeing their dead faces is going to lead to any developments.

BATTLER: .........Do you even have a heart?

ERIKA: A heart? What's that?

However, a return to the guesthouse reveals that all the corpses have gone missing.