The Day Before Tomorrow
"But when we heard the status report and rushed to the broadcast room, the content had already changed to the next one."
"That thing was just a cassette that you replaced while you were attracting everyone to your fake secret room. After all, you were the one who found that cassette player first."
"Tut…"
"I don't see any objection. Then let’s go to the next experiment."
"Basically we were all together in the second experiment. It was a game of running from the clones, but I'm sure your running out of energy was part of the plan. In doing so, you increased the number of suspects by separating several people from me.
As soon as Shōta stopped Risa's clone and we were waiting in the woods, you disappeared from my presence ,under the pretext of looking for Keisuke and Kazuhiro. Meanwhile, you headed to the broadcast room to set the timer on the tape recording of the third experiment. At the same time you sent out an email about the violator to everyone. It was the only time you could have sent the email without us seeing it.
Then you hurried back to the schoolyard, approached Shōta's corpse, and screamed. At that time, Kazuhiro and Keisuke were covered in sand from running around the schoolyard, but there was no sand on your clothes at all even though you were supposed be looking around for them. Isn't that the best proof that you were in the school building, not the schoolyard?"
"Wait. Are you saying that the violators of that security guard were also known in advance by the AI simulation?"
As I expected, Minami went straight for that point.
"No, that’s not right. The guard was already killed before yesterday!"
"…"
"I noticed it this morning when I went to the security office. When I looked at the guard's phone at the time, I didn't see a single text message with the experiment on it. That means the guard was killed before that, right? That was careless. He was already dead, so I guess you forgot he even existed."
"You make me laugh. Why would I have to kill a security guard before the game even started?"
"Isn't that because he saw you?"
"…!"
Minami's expression stiffened.
"It must have taken days of preparation to get such a big game going. Night would have been the best time to do it secretly. Then one night, a security guard who was on patrol found you preparing for a game and so you had no choice but to kill him. But if a body is found, the game can't even begin. To prevent that, you thought of disposing of the corpse, but simply leaving it somewhere else could be noticed by people living nearby. But that doesn't mean we can't burn him. Then you thought, why not just blend the body in.
It was from the third experiment, wasn't it, that the clones actually started killing people. The failure of the first two experiments would not have resulted in bloody corpses because you had been pre-programmed to be brain-dead or brain-exploding. So at the last minute, you added one more experiment. A game that is called a treasure hunt, but is actually about robots and humans killing each other. Only during the third experiment was a status report provided, though the exact death count was not broadcast. Isn't that because you didn't have the AI run simulations beforehand? So overall, that third experiment was only designed to hide the guard’s body you killed.
The reason it was inserted yesterday was to prevent the corpse from decomposing. No matter how much you keep it chilled in a refrigerator or something, after a few days, humans will decompose. So you needed to blend the guard's body in with the other corpses by yesterday. That's why you made the students' parents participate in the game forcing humans to shed blood. There were so many dead bodies scattered everywhere, and we were in a situation where we could have died. We wouldn't have had time to check every single one of them to see who died."
"You've gone ahead with some pretty eccentric ideas, but where in the world is the proof?"
Minami showed her white teeth and smiled. To me, it just looked like she was putting on a front.
"The evidence that you killed the security guard the day before is regarding the email I mentioned earlier, and one more. Earlier when I went to the broadcast room I kicked over a trash can. But it's not like I tripped over a trash can. But I actually slipped by stepping on a black stain near it and kicked the trash can over. That must have been the guard's blood, which was much more oxidized than the blood that was spilled yesterday and today."
"Damn…"
"There are more. When we found the security guard's head and when we placed it on the roof, not a single drop of blood was spilled. Human blood clots in a few hours, but it's unnatural that there's not a drop of blood left behind. After all, his carotid artery was also cut. This also implies the security guard wasn't killed yesterday or today.
Also, many people bled during that experiment. But the people on the third floor died in a different way. Many had been stabbed in the chest, back, and neck, with no other external injuries, while many of those who had died on the third floor had been dismembered. Just like Keisuke did. Yeah, just the people on the third floor which you were in charge of finding the head. You done that didn’t you? To hide the body of the guard."
