Chapter 7 - Oni to No Kumu

1

Hiroshi, Takuro, and Takeshi all looked at each other completely stunned as they stood there in the entrance hall. No one said a word. The seconds ticked by in silence. After what felt like an eternity, it was Hiroshi who finally spoke up.

“We may be able to open the front door if we retrieve the missing key fragment from the monster. Shall we try that?”

No one answered. But that was no surprise. Even if they managed to get all the pieces, it was tenuous at best to think the now broken card would still properly unlock the door. Not to mention that obtaining the missing piece was potentially impossible in the first place.

“Or we find another escape route...”

His hand on his chin, Hiroshi looked at the tablet.

“Shun, do you have any useful advice?” he asked the LCD panel.

“Can’t we just use the white door in the attic like last time?” Takuro interjected.

Hiroshi didn’t appear to understand what Takuro was talking about, but Shun did.

“Sorry. When I patched the game, that bug mysteriously disappeared,” he answered apologetically.

“Yeah, I figured as much. There was a mangled corpse in the yard below, so I had my suspicions. Glad I didn’t rush.” Takuro exhaled and shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“Is there any other way for us to escape?” Hiroshi asked, bringing his face close to the tablet.

“It’ll take a little time, but if you follow the game, you should eventually reach the goal.”

“The hidden door to the annex has already been opened,” Takuro said.

“Oh. In that case, proceed straight to the underground path and—”

“We can’t.”

“Huh?” Shun’s expression clouded.

“We tried to proceed like last time, but the path suddenly splits in two now. Plus it’s super dark. You can’t see your own hand in front of your face. It wasn’t like this before... What should we do?”

I see.

Shun had mentioned a patch. It seemed the structure of the Jailhouse must have changed accordingly. It would be impossible for the three of them alone to clear the game without losing someone to the monster. With the game’s creator on the line, however, they just might be able to pull it off. But Shun didn’t answer right away.

“Hey, what’s your deal?” Takuro asked irritably.

“...Sorry. I don’t know.” Shun’s feeble voice echoed from the speakers. “It’s a new version of the game, but all I really did was place some items in the entrance hall and nearby rooms... I fixed all the bugs that appeared because of that, but I didn’t mess with anything in the original code. But you’re saying there’s a split in the underground path now? How could that have happened?”

His reply was quite unsettling.

“Wait, you mean even you can’t help us?”

“I’ll look into it right now, so just give me a little time.”

Shun then looked down from the camera and began working away intently. Was he going to check each and every line of code himself?

“Hey, what’s going on? Are we really stuck here?” Takeshi looked like he was about to cry. “That can’t be, right? When we got here, the door was wide open.”

“Have you heard of the Venus flytrap?” Hiroshi said, pushing up the frames of his glasses that were moist with sweat.

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“It is a carnivorous plant native to North America. The Venus flytrap’s leaves are shaped like a bivalve shell. When an insect or arachnid touches them, they snap shut. The plant then crushes its prey and dissolves it with digestive fluids over the course of ten days, extracting what nutrients it needs. When all the available nutrients are absorbed, the plant opens its leaves once more to wait for its next meal. Does that not sound like this mansion?”

The door had certainly slammed shut, trapping them inside. Once the mansion was done feeding on them, it would likely open once more to welcome the next victims. Hiroshi had no idea how the system worked, but surely once their deaths were confirmed somehow, the door would unlock.

“Are you saying that if we all die, the door will open?”

“That is most likely the case.”

“To hell with that! That’ll be way too late!” Takeshi screamed near hysterically.

“How did this happen?” Shun’s quiet voice asked from the tablet.

“Did you find something?” Hiroshi asked, peering at the screen.

“This is odd. I downloaded the newest version of the program from the server and tried to install it on my laptop, but no matter what I try, this unknown error pops up and the program vanishes. I’ve never seen this before. I’m so confused.”

Shun seemed to be talking while typing, trying to find a solution, but it was quite obvious from the look on his face that the situation wasn’t hopeful.

“What do I do? I never expected this.... Why can’t I install it? Oh, come on! What now, what now?”

Things weren’t looking good. Guilt racked Shun as he neared a full-blown panic. He was the one most likely to know about the monster situation in the Jailhouse. If he’d lost the ability to make decisions calmly, it would only result in more danger for Hiroshi and the others inside the mansion.

“Shun, please calm down. I believe there are three choices left to us.” Hiroshi spoke in an even tone, taking measured breaths in order to stay calm himself. “First, we can look for a different escape route. We have no leads as to where to start at the moment, but perhaps we will stumble upon something later. The second choice is to retrieve the keycard fragment from the monster. That may be the plan with the highest chance of success.”

“Hey, egghead, are you crazy? We can’t possibly win against that monster. Are you so scared that your brain stopped working?” Takeshi hurled insults his way.

“The missing fragment is as insignificant as a speck of dust to that monster. It only wants to get in our way. I doubt it has any special attachment to the card itself; therefore, I believe it’s very likely it threw it away somewhere.”

Hiroshi explained exactly what he was really thinking, which seemed to convince Takeshi. He quieted down after that.

“You mentioned three choices,” said Shun. “What’s the last one?”

“Could we not also search for a spare key to open the front door from the outside?”

“A spare key?” Shun’s expression fell. “Logic doesn’t work on the Jailhouse. I doubt something so simple can really open the door.”

“Yet the monster also crushed the traditional key to pieces. If we consider why it did that, the answer comes naturally. Because it was the literal key to our escape, no?”

“But you can’t open the door from the inside even with Takuro’s key. The monster had no reason to do that.”

“That is not necessarily true. I learned from your conversation with Takuro that there is a door in the attic that leads outside. If we dropped the key from there to someone waiting below, they could have opened the front door with it. And, fearing that, the monster reduced the key to mere dust.”

“Hey, yeah. My father, too...” Takuro spoke up from Hiroshi’s side. “When I was checking around my father’s corpse, he’d dropped his key holder, but the key was missing. He must have used it to get in here, though.”

“The monster most likely took it. If it had left the key, after all, its next prey—in other words, us—would have been able to escape.” Hiroshi continued, “Takuro. Are there any other spare keys to the Jailhouse?”

“...No,” Takuro answered, clicking his tongue. “I’m pretty sure I know all of my father’s business. There were only two keys to this mansion in his study. Nothing else.”

“Now, now. It is too early to give up just yet.” Hiroshi pointed to the envelope sticking out of Takuro’s pocket. “That contains the deed to this property, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“In that case, it should include the name and contact information of the original seller.”

“I see. They might have a spare key...”

“Indeed. I believe the probability is high.”

Takuro pulled out the contents of the envelope and quickly scanned through them.

“‘Evidence for cause of registration’—is this it? Shun, there’s an address and name here. Can you jot this down?”

“Oh... Sure.”

The address Takuro rattled off belonged to a nearby secondhand shop called Antique Mart. Hiroshi had gone there many times before to look for out-of-print insect field guides. The owner was your average middle-aged gentleman. There were many rumors about the previous owners of the Jailhouse—that they’d gone mad and were locked up in a hospital outside of town, that their whole family had been killed, and even that they’d been abducted by aliens. But the truth was, surprisingly, rather uninteresting compared to all that.

“That’s the secondhand shop behind city hall, right? Got it. I’ll go there right now and won’t leave till I have a spare key.” A strong light shone in Shun’s previously unsure and hesitating eyes. “So don’t do anything crazy until I get back.”

“Understood.” For the time being, Hiroshi nodded obediently. “I’m going to end the call to save power in case we need it later. Will you contact us if you learn anything?”

“Sure. I’ll be there to save you soon.”

“Thank you,” Hiroshi said with a nod before closing the app. He then turned to look at Takuro as he slid the tablet into his jacket pocket. “Let us leave finding the spare key to Shun. We have our own business to attend to.”

“What’re we doing?”

“We’ll follow the monster into the annex. Obviously, the best-case scenario will be if we retrieve the keycard fragment, but even if we don’t, we might still find some clue as to how to escape.”

Shun had begged them to not do anything crazy, but Hiroshi wagered that there was less than a ten-percent chance of him successfully retrieving a key. The clock on the tablet had read 9:40 P.M. Anyone roused at this hour would unlikely be very willing to entertain crazy monster stories, not to mention the fact that the mansion had been abandoned for 20 years. There was no way the store owner would be able to produce the key immediately. In that case, rather than waiting around for the bad news, Hiroshi thought it best to move on to plan B.

“Hey, Takeshi.” Takuro walked over to Takeshi, who was trying to quietly remove the keycard from the cylinder. “Give me the card. Our lives depend on that thing. You’d probably just lose it.”

However, Takeshi put his hands behind him and shook his head violently.

“...No.”

His voice was whisper-quiet. The look of hate in his eyes as he glared at Takuro sent a slight chill down Hiroshi’s spine.

2

“I’m not giving you the key,” Takeshi eked out.

“Huh? What did you just say?” Takuro’s expression sharpened in an instant. “Come on. Hurry up and give it here.”

“I said no!” Takeshi raised his voice. “If I give you the card, you’ll just use me and abandon me in the end. I’m sure of it. It’s so obvious that’s what’s going to happen.”

“I won’t betray you.”

“As if I could trust you! Nothing’s changed. I’ve never trusted you.” Takeshi punctuated his sentence by spitting some still-red saliva on the floor. “My tooth is about to come out thanks to you. Who in their right mind would punch an old friend like that? I’m at my limit. How can I trust someone who only sees me as a tool?”

The high-pressure situation was causing all of Takeshi’s pent-up feelings to come rushing out. He continued railing at Takuro heatedly.

“It’s all your fault we’re in this mess. Anna was outta here ages ago. If it was your father you were worried about, you should have come alone. You didn’t have to involve us.”

Hiroshi expected Takuro to blow a gasket over Takeshi’s sudden change in attitude, but he remained calm.

“I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

Takeshi was shocked at the response he got. He stood there staring blankly at Takuro.

“I decided I wouldn’t become like my father, but I guess I’ve still got a long way to go. I get emotional too quickly.”

“...What are you planning now?” Takeshi demanded, nostrils flaring.

“Nothing.”

“Liar. That can’t possibly be true.”

“All right. You can keep the key fragments. That’s fine. But don’t you dare lose them. And don’t go running off on your own. I don’t want to go chasing after you. You’re small and can hide anywhere, so—”

“Don’t order me around!” Takeshi shouted loudly, cutting him off. “Why are you always so bossy?! What gives you the right to look down on me?!”

Takeshi grabbed the iron pipe from off the floor and took a swing at Takuro with a strange bellow. Takuro swiftly moved his upper body back to dodge the blow, but the end of the pipe must have caught him. Blood spattered from his cheek, and he stumbled backward, falling on his rear end. The lighter that was in his pocket nearly jumped out as he hit the floor. Takeshi rushed over to snatch it up, and then made a break for the hole in the wall with it and the iron pipe.

“Takeshi! Don’t let your emotions control you!” Takuro shouted, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Takeshi disappeared into the darkness. A pale blue flame flickered from the other side of the hole. He must have been using the lighter to find his way.

“Come back here! Takeshi!”

Takuro shouted again at the top of his lungs, but silence was his only answer.

3

He’d thought it was just a scratch, but blood kept pouring from Takuro’s left cheek.

“Are you okay?”

Hiroshi jogged over to him to look at the wound. The skin was ripped deeper than he’d imagined. He removed his school jacket, tore off a piece of his shirt, and handed it to Takuro.

“Please use this to apply pressure to the wound.”

Then he dashed into one of the rooms closest to the entrance hall. He recalled there being something that looked like a first aid kit when he initially inspected the mansion. There hadn’t been anything like it when he played through Shun’s game, so it must have been one of the helpful items he’d included in the new version.

There was nothing in all of modern science that indicated updates to a video game would effect changes in the real world. A few weeks ago, he would have laughed all of this off as ridiculous. It surprised him now that he was accepting it so readily. But there it was atop one of the shelves—a plastic box marked with a red cross. Hiroshi grabbed it and returned to Takuro.

Inside the kit was a selection of general first aid items. Hiroshi applied some petroleum jelly to Takuro’s wound to seal it, then placed gauze over the top of it. He would have preferred to wrap a bandage around it instead, but Takuro was against the idea. That was uncool, apparently. It seemed he still cared a great deal about appearances, even in a situation like this. Humans made no sense to Hiroshi. The more he learned about them, the more mysterious they became, further piquing his interest.

No, this is no time to be thinking about that.

“Now, what shall we do?” he asked Takuro after he finished treating his cheek.

“Ain’t it obvious? We gotta go after Takeshi,” Takuro replied, twitching his facial muscles as if irritated by the gauze.

“Understood. Then let us hurry.”

Hiroshi stood up and led the two of them through the hole in the wall. He could feel a discernible drop in air temperature as soon as he reached the other side.

“Hold on. I’ve got a light.”

Takuro turned on his smartphone’s flashlight. It wasn’t very strong, as if the battery was running low. But even then, it let them see about three meters ahead. At least they wouldn’t be walking blind this way. But the first obstacle was right in front of them. The underground path split in two.

“Hey, which way should we go?”

“When Takeshi ran in here, I saw the lighter flame move to the left. He must have gone that way,” Hiroshi said, choosing the left-hand path without hesitation.

They moved forward carefully, watching for anything out of the ordinary. They were as blind as bats outside the narrow glow of the flashlight. And if the monster suddenly appeared in the range of their light, it would be too late. They needed all of their senses working overtime in order to sense its approach sooner than that.

“Hey, check it out.”

Takuro pointed over Hiroshi’s shoulder. A fragment of the keycard was lying on the ground ahead.

“Well, would you look at that?” He picked it up and smiled wryly. “This is why I said we couldn’t rely on him.”

“We can only hope he dropped both fragments.”

“He never does what you want him to. That’s just his style, though. He’s useless except when it comes to making food.”

“Is Takeshi a good cook?”

“You didn’t know? His family runs a pretty well-reviewed restaurant near here. He makes a mean fried rice loaded with habaneros. Mika’s addicted to it.” Takuro sighed slightly. “Where is she hiding?

Hiroshi could say nothing in response.