Summary
: If there’s one thing I don’t like about Tokio’s chapters in this game, it’s the over-reliance on chat logs.
Slash: I had questions about something else myself.
Tokio: What?
Slash: About the shelter. Have you really forgotten?
Tokio: What do you mean?
Slash: If so, then we’ve got a long road ahead.
Tokio: The fuck are you talking about?
Slash: Ah.
Tokio: Ah?
Slash: Kamijo.
Tokio: What??
Slash: He’s logged in at Quarter. The comic cafe chatroom, the one he always used to use. Or more like the one he bought for himself.
Tokio: So a dead guy is enjoying a nice little chat?
Slash: Wonder who it is? It means someone used Kamijo’s password and entered the chatroom.
Tokio: Look just explain this shit simply ok? Can we talk to them?
Slash: Yeah it’s easy. Log in to Quarter. User name is GLG. Password is “GOODLOOKINGGUY”. You can use whatever handle you want.
: Huh, so I did call it when I said Kuroyanagi was talking to Tokio in that one scene in Good Looking Guy. I didn’t know for sure.
: “What about you?”
: “I’m a detective.”
: “Detective? What department?”
: “HC Unit. You sound like you got a chip on your shoulder.”
: Tokio is probably going “Wait, is this Big Dick fucking with me?”
: “So the HC Unit still exists, huh?”
: “Hold up. Hold up hold up hold up hold up hold up hold up. I just remembered something. Some old memory suddenly came back and it all clicked.”
: “What memory?”
: “You’re an ex-reporter, right? What are you doing? You looking into Kamijo?”
: “Just seeing where it takes me.”
: “Hm.”
: “So come on detective, fill me in.”
: “OK, ask whatever you want. But you only get 2 questions.”
: “What exactly is Kamijo?”
: “I don’t have a proper handle on it just yet, but basically an old soldier. If you wanna know more, you’re gonna have to check out the postal federation. But if you start that up, you’re gonna be up for processing in an instant.”
: “If he were to leave some secret final will online, where do you think he’d leave it?”
: “The one place that pops into mind would be his chat friends. Gimme 1 minute and I’ll ask for you.”
: “I’ll wait.”
: “I’m asking the master here. This is a comic cafe, but I guess you already know that. I feel like I’ve met you before.”
: “I asked the master. Kamijo was a real VIP client here.”
: I said in the last update that Meru was probably the real “Milu” and that Milu and Miru were both AIs. Now we get this part about her having her hair eaten by a stalker (who was presumably the apartment manager that Sakaki and Shiroyabu found dead in New World Order).
: My guess, not knowing the plot, is that Kamijo is the one who killed the apartment manager.
: “She’d take any kind of fucked up pervert request and fulfill it.”
: “I see.”
: “She used to talk with Kamijo. Here in this chatroom too. She probably made some really good money.”
: “I feel like things are starting to come together.”
: “Well good for you.”
: “Oh yeah, how can I meet with Machiko?”
: “You only get two questions.”
: “You did that on purpose, huh.”
: “See you.”
: “Thanks a lot.”
: “Kamijo and Milu.. there are still more dots.. I’ll find them.”
Slash: Was head of a small tabletop gaming club. He was good at making up rules, so he probably created this whole thing himself. The mystery is made to be solved, like one of those string and wire puzzles.
Slash: What we’re dealing with is clearly around a level 4 puzzle, so it’s basically a somewhat hard difficulty level.
Tokio: Check to see whether Meru or Miru and Kamijo had some sort of relationship.
Slash: OK boss.
: As opposed to the difficulty 8 bathroom puzzle where there’s no fucking way to know which password goes where (apart from Genbu).
: At this point, Tokio’s cell phone starts ringing.
: “Yeah…”
: “My name is Yabukawa. For certain reasons, I can’ tell you what I’m doing, but I’m actually a friend of the late Kamijo.”
: “What do you want?”
: “I can’t really talk on the phone. I’d like to speak with you directly.”
: “Well that’s pretty vague.”
: “I know.”
: “How did you get this number?”
: “Regarding that.. I can’t really explain.”
: “Huh? I don’t get it.”
: “Anyway, I want to meet with you to speak, tonight at 9 o’clock. What do you say?”
: “Where…?”
: “Just outside the 25th Ward.. the area where the 26th Ward is going to be constructed. There’s a small park there. How about there?”
: “9 o’clock?”
: Metal Gear!?
: “Sorry for the mystery.”
: “Oh no… there are actually a lot of people like that around recently. So I’m used to it.”
: “I see. For some reason that makes me feel better.”
Tokio: I’ll talk to Miru.
Slash: The password is “KAMIJO”.
Tokio: That password sounds like it’s just waiting to be stolen.
Slash: But for some reason, you have 7 points left.
Tokio: I guess I got 7 minutes to get this sorted then.
Slash: Looks like it.
: And of course we get another one of these. It’s weird because the last time we had to do this, Miru wanted us to be direct but not that direct, but here we do a lot of things that seem like they’d piss her off.
: See, I feel like this would have made Miru kick us out if we did it the first time we talked with her.
Miru: Yes, I’m very happy. Because you made me, Master. I don’t care if people think I’m stupid. I don’t care if people say I’m unfortunate. As long as you keep taking care of me like this, I’m so, so happy. Right?
GLG: yeah
: That’s uh.. that’s definitely a little creepy. It feels kind of like the original “Damsel” end in Slay the Princess where the Princess degrades into a stick figure.
: That game had exactly one part I liked (Thorn) and the “Pristine Cut” patch added one more (Happily Ever After) where it felt like it had something to say.
Miru: Please upload the security key.
Slash: Now.
: Did he upload his own personality construct AI thing and then overwrite it with his weird sex chatbot girlfriend? Not weird at all.
GLG: I have no regrets. But there’s something I need to know about. The girls. One is a professional woman. But she’s already dead. I’m in the same place as her.
GLG: One more is an imaginary woman. She will be released. She’s a fabrication, but even so. I’ve treated her the same as other women. She will be fine.
GLG: The last girl is one with whom I entered into a contract. I’m very worried about her. She was in the Shelter.
GLG: I want to talk to her. I have a favor to ask of you. I want you to tell her to come here. Will you do this for me?
TurtleGuy: So a dead guy wants to talk to his woman in chat?
GLG: That’s right. You probably think this is stupid, but that’s all I want. You’ll be paid for your services, of course.
TurtleGuy: A request from a dead man. Sounds like a job perfect for me. What do I do?
GLG: …
: “9:30… looks like I’ve been stood up.”
: Phone rings.
: “It’s me.”
: “Sorry.”
: “Yabukawa.. you’re close by, aren’t you?”
: “Yeah, but I can’t go there. Sorry.”
: “You had something you wanted to say to me, right?”
: “Yeah.”
: “What was it?”
: “I meant to tell you directly. But that didn’t work out. I called you all the way out here…”
: “It’s about Kamijo, right?”
: “So Kamijo is an ex-hitman, huh..”
: “Yeah, if you want to call it that. We called it something else. But yeah, it’s the same thing.”
: “So you’re a killer, too, right?”
: “That’s right.”
: “You were trying to kill Kamijo. Am I wrong?”
: “No, you’re right. I had my orders. But I had been fighting it.”
: “It sounds cliche, but the depth of my sins had become terrifying. But then he kiled himself. That was an amazing feat. Kamijo got out. Completely and thoroughly.”
: “And I, having been tracking his movements during life, ended up finding the HC Unit detectives who were investigating him, as well as her.”
: “You mean Machiko?”
: “Then, in order to get rid of any connection between Kamijo and the two detectives and Machiko, I was supposed to adjust them, but..”
: “You hesitated?”
: “Actually, without any hestitation at all, I ended up getting done in.”
: Body Count: 45. Even though we don’t see Yabukawa die in this chapter, we do eventually see it.
: “By whom?”
: “The rules…”
: “Apparently, yeah. How am I supposed to process this whole situation…?”
: “Please calm down. You just need to tell me what you can.”
: “What I wanted to tell you is that Yasushi Kamijo isn’t dead.”
: I guess this confirms that what we saw at the end of Good Looking Guy was actually Kamijo and not Machiko speaking to his ghost using her Ayame powers.
: “No way… you’re lying, right?”
: “I felt that someone should know this. Kamijo’s suicide was a ruse. I said that he’d gotten out, right? That’s what I meant.”
: “Then who died at the cafe?”
: This means that everyone we talked to in this chapter, apart from Kuroyanagi, is either dead or an AI.. or both.
: “Kamijo made him up to look just like him, and killed him in a way that would make it look like a suicide. Brainwashing and plastic surgery. I taught him all of it, way back when.”
: I think I’m starting to see why people didn’t like this game as much as The Silver Case, because this feels like Danganronpa or Zero Escape writing.
:
: “So when did you figure out that Kamijo had set up the ruse?”
: “When I fell to the ground. I had a revelation. That’s when I called you… mysteriously, everything became clear. Kamijo and Machiko ran off together. Or rather, in order to run off together, Kamijo got everything prepared.”
: “I’m happy for him. I truly am… but there’s one thing I don’t understand.”
: “What?”
: “How did I know that? Did I die?”
: “Yeah, you’re dead.”
: “Oh…”
: “…”
: “OK, it finally makes sense now. I feel calm and at peace. So, this is death… thank you…”
: I feel like anyone can talk to people who are about to die.
Tokio: Oh yeah, OK. I think I remember that that’s the burden I have to bear…"
Twilight of Maldives
I made my way to a house along the coast, but as I opened the door and went inside, there was nobody there.
There were several small, modest pieces of furniture. But there wasn’t even the faintest scent of life, or a lifestyle, or a family, or anything even similar.
It’s like the Shelter, I thought. As I thought that, I suddenly felt a sort of shock like I’d been punched in the head, and I became sad.
Maybe he came back and took her away. Or maybe, he’ll never come back again, and she disappeared off somewhere alone. I don’t know what really happened. But either way, the promise had been fulfilled. This much is certain.
Otherwise, not a single person would be able to rest in peace. Otherwise, no meaning whatsoever could be found in living in this world. Right? Don’t you think so?
: Yogore (汚れ) is a word that means something like “dirty” or “stained”.